Game Preview: Assetto Corsa

For those considering games at the high-end of the simulation scale, pickings have been somewhat slim for the past few years. Many publishing companies are focusing on cross-platform releases, including the lucrative home console market. As such, it has been difficult for developers to harness unbridled processing power in their titles.

No longer... Focussing on the personal computer (PC) platform, the team behind Assetto Corsa (Italian for racing setup) is seriously pushing the CPU of home hardware to the limits in order to get a real racing experience to the masses.

The team at Kunos Simulazioni have a long history of racing simulation development, including working on Ferrari Virtual Academy for their fellow Italian’s famous marque in 2010. That said, this game's development history has been spotted with dead ends and false-starts.

With this project the development team chose and abandoned a number of technologies before settling on a combination of code bases and DirectX 11 for the graphical engine and XAudio2 for sound.

On the plus side, Assetto Corsa features iconic tracks all laser scanned to provide as realistic a reproduction as possible with modern technics. According to the developers, players will be able to race on Silverstone, Imola, Mugello and many more tracks. The selection will include a historical reproduction of Monza, that brings back to life the legendary Sopraelevata -- the high-speed oval where races were staged until 1961.

Spa-Francorchamps and other circuits are in development and they will be included in expansion packages.

Plenty of licensed cars will be available in many classes. From the sedans of BMW, a wide variety of Ferraris (red, of course) through exotics such as the Pagani Zonda R. Other cars from Abarth, McLaren, Lotus, Mercedes, KTM and more will join them.

PC-based, Assetto Corsa will need to cater for a wide variety of hardware including an extensive list of racing wheel peripherals as well as other technologies such as the Track IR head motion tracking system, 3D VISION and the upcoming virtual reality system, Oculus Rift.

One trap heavy simulator titles can fall into is simply not being fun. Despite the serious bent on getting the tracks defined just so, and the physics just right, Kunos Simulazioni says there is an emphasis in Assetto Corso on play.

The developers say: “Assetto Cosrsa includes a career mode, a list of special and unique events and challenges, as well as a fully customizable, single player and multiplayer modes featuring quick races, race weekends including free practice session, qualifying session and race, drag races, drift challenges and much more!

Four driving assist profiles (gamer, racer, pro, plus a fully-customizable profile) allow any kind of player to enjoy the simulation at their desired level.

Kunos Simulazioni is really pushing to develop a community with this game release. The code will include a great deal of opportunity for those with time and skill to create their own modifications (or mods) for the core game.

At the time of writing Assetto Corsa is on the cusp of being released.

Available on the Early Access program on the Steam PC gaming service, the game will also feature expansion packs and new content through 2014.