DiRT Rally talisman Paul Coleman has found a home at iRacing, more specifically the Orontes Games team that created little-known off-road racer DRAG Outer Zones. Since an iRacing takeover in 2021, it has been fervently working to evolve that into a fully-fledged title – ExoCross. Here’s how...
Paul Coleman has worked on some of my most beloved off-road driving video games – predominately the majority of DiRT titles, from the more accessible to being the driving force behind the first DiRT Rally simulation.
These days, he resides at iRacing, working on one of the platform's recent acquisitions – ExoCross, formerly DRAG Outer Zones, by Orontes Games. Today, he is taking time out of his busy schedule to explain the process behind turning it from a testbed to a complete release.
The off-road driving game – where you helm fantastical, rugged, vehicles that wouldn’t be out of place in the upcoming Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga movie – was initially created by two German brothers, Christian and Thorsten Folkers.
DRAG landed on Steam via early access in 2020, before the American sim racing platform then snapped up the studio at the end of 2021, taking stewardship of the project.
Turns out, it was not just purchasing a team with an unfinished project – it was also gaining a custom game engine, created from the ground up.
Now, 29 months later, the renamed ExoCross is close to completion, with an anticipated launch in a matter of months.
It’s a process, according to Coleman, has seen the original vision being realised and expanded upon:
“I think it's fair to say that DRAG was built as a tech demo for Orontes’ engine that they'd been building. Steve Myers and the iRacing team saw potential in the engine and reached out.
“The first thing that I did with the team, which had expanded before I joined, was essentially look at how we could bring this together into a coherent product – rather than an early access game that would receive small iterations as and when.”
“Many elements had already been theorised by the team, such as improvements in the user interface that Christian and Thorsten noticed, which my life a lot easier when it came to bringing those bits together. But there was housekeeping too, such as ‘What should we call this?’ and ‘What will single-player progression look like?’”
Developing with the aforementioned Orontes Engine, according to Coleman, has been a boon. For one, the still diminutive team – around 10 full-time members for ExoCross – can tinker directly with any line of code as they know it inside and out. It’s also relatively new, with “no legacy code” lurking.
“I think the thing that impressed me the most was just the process of getting it up and running on consoles, both PlayStation and Xbox,” enthuses Coleman to OverTake, speaking to us from his home office in front of an impressive Lego Speed Champions collection.
“From my previous experiences of getting a PC game to move over onto console, specifically while using Unreal Engine, you watch a frame rate go from 50-60 on a reasonably high-end PC down to 10 or five initially.
“Then the battle is, as you develop, how to keep it looking at least semi-reasonable, while still getting to a frame rate level where a player can enjoy the game.
“Whereas, thanks to the work that Christian [Folkers] has done with this engine, we had the game running at 60fps on console very quickly and still looking great.
“There have been a few extra elements, like the AI that we’ve had input from iRacing with, that needed some optimisation, but otherwise I've been absolutely blown away by the performance of the engine.
“This also gives me so much hope for what we can do with it in the future.”
While I get the sense that learnings from this game’s development can be used on different projects down the line, for now, the focus is very much on shipping ExoCross.
It’s a platform that has expanded since the early access days – the time trial mode seen in its precursor now features online leaderboards and ghost replays, for example. A challenge mode remains, whereby you try to aim for bronze, silver and gold (plus a fourth secret reward tier, reminiscent of Trackmania) times on short runs, but there has been a proliferation of events.
Online multiplayer will be there at launch too, and while not cross-platform, it is cross-generational for those using a console. Meanwhile, special events are time-limited and leaderboard-focused, reminiscent of DiRT Rally’s daily challenges.
The total number of routes now stands at 38, thanks in part to an additional “much larger” zone (read, biome) compared with DRAG. Each environment is set to receive a notable visual uplift, with particular attention to the surrounding features.
“The final thing that we are in the process of doing right now is making the locations feel more like events and less like a form of barren wilderness racing,” explains Coleman, the project’s Creative Director.
“ExoCross is a sport, and we want it to feel like that. There will be sponsor boards, gantries and start/finish lines. I think that set dressing is important to create an atmosphere, but it also helps us with signposting so players can see where a corner is wrapping around a hillside.”
The big-ticket item, however, sounds like the championship mode, which makes use of AI racing – career-like progression was not something seen in the early access progenitor, as Coleman points out:
“The championship mode’s progression goal is fairly basic in principle; you open up access to the new car, you move through, you do harder tracks, you race against more difficult AI opponents and the ultimate goal is to become the ExoCross champion.
“But the three vehicles are distinct in character and you will experience them as you work through the championship. There's more of a rookie car that is a bit ‘understeery’, a middle car that is delicately balanced and a new car that essentially takes the lid off both of those and just gives you something wild to try and tame.
“It was important for us to have at least a six-hour campaign, that the player can work their way through and feel like they've completed the game. We've still got all the challenge modes, time trials and multiplayer.
The racing game industry veteran also explains the online multiplayer, which will run in a playlist structure on dedicated servers with “the goal to make sure that those servers are location-based.”
Once matchmaking is complete, a player vote will determine the car in use. This will be followed by a qualifying session that pays points and then a reverse-grid race. Six of these rounds back-to-back form an online championship.
“We've been doing weekly online tests for probably six months now and the racing is good, it's close,” reveals Coleman.
“We are just trying to keep it keep things fun, fast and enjoyable. That goes for the gameplay as well as the whole lobby system and even how quick the voting is.
“We’ve also had some iRacing input when we created a new tyre model, which essentially has given us a much more progressive feeling of grip loss,” Coleman is keen to stress.
“One of the things we wanted to do was ensure that the cars felt like they had believable vehicle dynamics, while still maintaining that sense of an extreme off-road racing sport that happens sometime in the future on planets that that aren't Earth.
“It has a more intuitive and classical tyre model that players will be used to from other games, but then there is also some special sauce that provides an off-road feel. You need to use dirt racing techniques to get these cars to hustle around corners.
“A Scandinavian flick is your friend if you're coming into a hairpin. Loading up the weight on various corners of the car, and then flicking it around is a really satisfying experience.”
To make the most of the tyre model, steering wheel peripherals are set to be supported on both PC and console. VR, however, is “not intended at the moment, but I'm never going to say never,” while damage is included with wheels shearing off should you overdo it.
“From a personal perspective, this project has been a lot more hands-on than I've had for many of the games that I've worked on in the last 20 years,” he adds.
“This has been an absolute revelation how enjoyable the game engine is to work with, for example, it's near instant to export a new track, load it up and play.”
An exact release date is not yet announced, and I'm yet to test it for myself save for the early DRAG version which remains available on Steam. But if it lives up to Coleman’s enthusiasm, colour me intrigued.
ExoCross is expected to release this summer for PC, PlayStation and Xbox, both old and new. Let us know if you’re interested too in the comments below, or via X: @OverTake_gg.
Paul Coleman has worked on some of my most beloved off-road driving video games – predominately the majority of DiRT titles, from the more accessible to being the driving force behind the first DiRT Rally simulation.
These days, he resides at iRacing, working on one of the platform's recent acquisitions – ExoCross, formerly DRAG Outer Zones, by Orontes Games. Today, he is taking time out of his busy schedule to explain the process behind turning it from a testbed to a complete release.
The off-road driving game – where you helm fantastical, rugged, vehicles that wouldn’t be out of place in the upcoming Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga movie – was initially created by two German brothers, Christian and Thorsten Folkers.
DRAG landed on Steam via early access in 2020, before the American sim racing platform then snapped up the studio at the end of 2021, taking stewardship of the project.
Turns out, it was not just purchasing a team with an unfinished project – it was also gaining a custom game engine, created from the ground up.
Now, 29 months later, the renamed ExoCross is close to completion, with an anticipated launch in a matter of months.
It’s a process, according to Coleman, has seen the original vision being realised and expanded upon:
“I think it's fair to say that DRAG was built as a tech demo for Orontes’ engine that they'd been building. Steve Myers and the iRacing team saw potential in the engine and reached out.
“The first thing that I did with the team, which had expanded before I joined, was essentially look at how we could bring this together into a coherent product – rather than an early access game that would receive small iterations as and when.”
“Many elements had already been theorised by the team, such as improvements in the user interface that Christian and Thorsten noticed, which my life a lot easier when it came to bringing those bits together. But there was housekeeping too, such as ‘What should we call this?’ and ‘What will single-player progression look like?’”
Custom Game Engine Has Its Perks
Developing with the aforementioned Orontes Engine, according to Coleman, has been a boon. For one, the still diminutive team – around 10 full-time members for ExoCross – can tinker directly with any line of code as they know it inside and out. It’s also relatively new, with “no legacy code” lurking.
“I think the thing that impressed me the most was just the process of getting it up and running on consoles, both PlayStation and Xbox,” enthuses Coleman to OverTake, speaking to us from his home office in front of an impressive Lego Speed Champions collection.
“From my previous experiences of getting a PC game to move over onto console, specifically while using Unreal Engine, you watch a frame rate go from 50-60 on a reasonably high-end PC down to 10 or five initially.
“Then the battle is, as you develop, how to keep it looking at least semi-reasonable, while still getting to a frame rate level where a player can enjoy the game.
“Whereas, thanks to the work that Christian [Folkers] has done with this engine, we had the game running at 60fps on console very quickly and still looking great.
“There have been a few extra elements, like the AI that we’ve had input from iRacing with, that needed some optimisation, but otherwise I've been absolutely blown away by the performance of the engine.
“This also gives me so much hope for what we can do with it in the future.”
While I get the sense that learnings from this game’s development can be used on different projects down the line, for now, the focus is very much on shipping ExoCross.
An Expansion of Content and Game Modes
It’s a platform that has expanded since the early access days – the time trial mode seen in its precursor now features online leaderboards and ghost replays, for example. A challenge mode remains, whereby you try to aim for bronze, silver and gold (plus a fourth secret reward tier, reminiscent of Trackmania) times on short runs, but there has been a proliferation of events.
Online multiplayer will be there at launch too, and while not cross-platform, it is cross-generational for those using a console. Meanwhile, special events are time-limited and leaderboard-focused, reminiscent of DiRT Rally’s daily challenges.
The total number of routes now stands at 38, thanks in part to an additional “much larger” zone (read, biome) compared with DRAG. Each environment is set to receive a notable visual uplift, with particular attention to the surrounding features.
“The final thing that we are in the process of doing right now is making the locations feel more like events and less like a form of barren wilderness racing,” explains Coleman, the project’s Creative Director.
“ExoCross is a sport, and we want it to feel like that. There will be sponsor boards, gantries and start/finish lines. I think that set dressing is important to create an atmosphere, but it also helps us with signposting so players can see where a corner is wrapping around a hillside.”
Single-Player Progression
The big-ticket item, however, sounds like the championship mode, which makes use of AI racing – career-like progression was not something seen in the early access progenitor, as Coleman points out:
“The championship mode’s progression goal is fairly basic in principle; you open up access to the new car, you move through, you do harder tracks, you race against more difficult AI opponents and the ultimate goal is to become the ExoCross champion.
“But the three vehicles are distinct in character and you will experience them as you work through the championship. There's more of a rookie car that is a bit ‘understeery’, a middle car that is delicately balanced and a new car that essentially takes the lid off both of those and just gives you something wild to try and tame.
“It was important for us to have at least a six-hour campaign, that the player can work their way through and feel like they've completed the game. We've still got all the challenge modes, time trials and multiplayer.
The racing game industry veteran also explains the online multiplayer, which will run in a playlist structure on dedicated servers with “the goal to make sure that those servers are location-based.”
Once matchmaking is complete, a player vote will determine the car in use. This will be followed by a qualifying session that pays points and then a reverse-grid race. Six of these rounds back-to-back form an online championship.
“We've been doing weekly online tests for probably six months now and the racing is good, it's close,” reveals Coleman.
“We are just trying to keep it keep things fun, fast and enjoyable. That goes for the gameplay as well as the whole lobby system and even how quick the voting is.
Authentic Handling... For Something Not on Earth
“We’ve also had some iRacing input when we created a new tyre model, which essentially has given us a much more progressive feeling of grip loss,” Coleman is keen to stress.
“One of the things we wanted to do was ensure that the cars felt like they had believable vehicle dynamics, while still maintaining that sense of an extreme off-road racing sport that happens sometime in the future on planets that that aren't Earth.
“It has a more intuitive and classical tyre model that players will be used to from other games, but then there is also some special sauce that provides an off-road feel. You need to use dirt racing techniques to get these cars to hustle around corners.
“A Scandinavian flick is your friend if you're coming into a hairpin. Loading up the weight on various corners of the car, and then flicking it around is a really satisfying experience.”
To make the most of the tyre model, steering wheel peripherals are set to be supported on both PC and console. VR, however, is “not intended at the moment, but I'm never going to say never,” while damage is included with wheels shearing off should you overdo it.
“From a personal perspective, this project has been a lot more hands-on than I've had for many of the games that I've worked on in the last 20 years,” he adds.
“This has been an absolute revelation how enjoyable the game engine is to work with, for example, it's near instant to export a new track, load it up and play.”
An exact release date is not yet announced, and I'm yet to test it for myself save for the early DRAG version which remains available on Steam. But if it lives up to Coleman’s enthusiasm, colour me intrigued.
ExoCross is expected to release this summer for PC, PlayStation and Xbox, both old and new. Let us know if you’re interested too in the comments below, or via X: @OverTake_gg.
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