Charoudin Visit Reignites ACC Nordschleife Rumors

ACC Nordschleife Rumors.jpg
“Nordschleife when?” has evolved into a meme in the Assetto Corsa Competizione community. With the addition of the Nürburgring 24 Hours to the IGTC calendar, serious speculation started. Now, a Ring specialist’s visit to Kunos Simulazioni reignited the ACC Nordschleife rumors.

Image credit: Kunos Simulazioni

Licensing was in the way of the Nordschleife being added to ACC for the longest time. When the Intercontinental GT Challenge announced the addition of the Nürburgring 24 Hours to its calendar starting in 2024, it became clear that this would no longer be an issue. However, with Assetto Corsa 2 being in development, not too much focus might lay on ACC.

ACC Nordschleife Rumors: No License Issue Anymore​

The popular GT3 simulator already features the Grand Prix circuit of the Nürburgring. Additional tracks are subject to the SRO license, though. This means that they are limited to where SRO-sanctioned series race – hence the omission of the Nordschleife thus far.

Since the July announcement, speculation has died down. That is until this week, when Misha Charoudin visited developer Kunos Simulazioni and posted about it on Instagram. The Russian-born racing driver is a noted Nordschleife specialist, competing in the NLS in a BMW 330i alongside sim racers Jimmy Broadbent and "SuperGT" Steve Alvarez Brown.

A photo Charoudin shared shows him in a simulator, with emojis covering up the monitors – or most of them. A fraction is visible, and the community immediately noticed a HUD element from ACC. Charoudin’s caption also added oil to the speculation fire. the Was this a cheeky Nordschleife teaser? Not necessarily.

ACC Nordschleife Rumors Charoudin.png

Misha Charoudin reignited the Nordschleife to ACC discussions with this Instagram post. Image credit: mgcharoudin on Instagram

ACC Nordschleife Rumors: Other Explanations​

Of course, the photo and caption could have been a sneaky way to confirm something without actually confirming it. There are other explanations for it, however.

Assetto Corsa 2 Preview​

Likely launching in Q2 of 2024, Kunos is currently working on Assetto Corsa 2. The successor to the immensely popular original is sure to feature the Nürburgring in all its glory, just like the first AC. Although not confirmed, it is safe to assume that the track will reappear for AC2. Meanwhile, it would not be unusual for a test version of a game to use HUD elements from an older title.

It would make sense for Charoudin to check out the current build of the track during his visit, then. The driver lives close to the Ring and has plenty of laps under his belt. His opinion and suggestions can help Kunos to create a more authentic version of the green hell. After all, the original AC‘s Nordschleife is over eight years old at the time of writing this article, so plenty of things have changed around the circuit.

GT2 Cars​

Assetto Corsa Competizione is due one last, officially announced DLC. First talked about at the 2022 24 Hours of Spa, the GT2 class is set to make its debut in the sim. It is also possible that Charoudin got to test the new class of cars ahead of its release – which does not have a date yet.

ACC GT2 DLC.png

The upcoming GT2 DLC pack lineup for ACC. Image credit: Kunos Simulazioni

Seven vehicles have been confirmed for the GT2 DLC. The pack will bring six cars of manufacturers that are already in the game to the table, but also newly introduces Brabham to ACC. The iconic make founded by F1 legend Jack Brabham has a rather exciting machine with the name BT63 GT2 on offer.

Of course, the speculation may well turn out to be true as well. ACC is nearing the end of its lifespan, but if there could ever be a proper send-off, the Nordschleife would be just that. It is the single most-requested content piece by the community ever since the title launched in 2018.


There is no doubt that most of the active ACC playerbase would need little convincing to grab this last hurrah of a DLC as a result. If Kunos can find a way to implement it without diverging too many resources from the development of AC2, it would certainly be worth their time.

On the other hand, the behemoth of a track would be a mammoth project to recreate in sufficient detail. Never mind performance issues with the resource-hungry Unreal Engine 4 ACC uses. Time will tell – and sim racers will wait anxiously for an official statement.

What do you think about the reignited Nordschleife speculations? Would you give the track a go in ACC? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

Premium
COTA being my favorite track, I'd say replace COTA with Indy and yeah. Thank you for that information. Hopefully Sebring one day.
I was about to say Indy but that track is kind of important to SRO in America now since they moved the 8 hour IGTC race from Laguna to there. I personally would prefer it have stayed at Laguna as I am not that fussed about Indy either haha
 
VIR is one of my favorite racing circuits. If I won the lottery, I'd move there and buy an ACR Viper tomorrow! However don't denigrate Sebring, it has a very prestigious history in endurance racing. And those bumps...talk about unique. Nowhere in this modern world will you find a circuit that bites as hard as Sebring if you dare to challenge it.
Penske found this out when they introduced the LMP2 Spyder a couple of decades ago. They ran the cars ultra stiff because that is what created the speed when Porsche tested the cars on their ultra smooth F1 style circuits. Both Spyders broke due to suspension failures, although, if I remember they did struggle on to get at least one car to the end.
Sonoma, so long as you bypass the Nascar portions of the circuit is another great driving track.
Road America? You'd be surprised how many Euro types confuse Road Atlanta & Road America. Either track to me, is the epitome of American racing circuits.
 
Le Mans is off the table for the same reason that the Nordschleife was never possibly coming to ACC for so many years, licencing. SRO do not have any of their championships racing there.

Sebring on the other hand was a realistic candidate for ACC. Since GT World Challenge America raced there. Unfortunately, the American tracks we got were Laguna, COTA, Watkins and Indy. I'm sure the majority of people here would have happily done without COTA for the sake of having Sebring.
I thought this past summer SRO tied in ADAC or whomever runs the 24hr race at Nords...So now there IS the possiblity of the Ring appearing in ACC.
 
Premium
I thought this past summer SRO tied in ADAC or whomever runs the 24hr race at Nords...So now there IS the possiblity of the Ring appearing in ACC.
You're right, yes. But considering AC2 is just around the corner, it may have come too late. Let's hope otherwise
 
Oh thats big!
Been following Micha's channel on/off since it was sub 7k subbers (ok admit a heartly pun, but about these numbers AFAIR) and always been under the impression that he would squirm with a snort hearing the word "simracing" as an IRL purist. But I also believed that for years about dedicated older racing drivers and friends until I heard their enthusiasm within our field in their own words.

Although I only used my ACC shelf during Cov-19, this article with a picture of Micha in a sim rig warms my old sim heart so indescribably :inlove:
 
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Premium
What’s stopping them from using the same asset for both games? Developed for AC2 and brought to ACC as a thank you to the fans. I’m sure the graphical fidelity is comparable.
Well ACC and AC2 will not be on the same game engines, so it requires very different techniques to create. It is not a simple export over like on the F1 games.
 
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It's hard to say, really. A Nordschleife DLC for ACC would sell like hot cakes no matter the price tag, and the virtual 24 Hours of Nurburgring would find its well-deserved home in ACC next year. It is just natural that Kunos create the Nords for ACC now that the 24 hours is part of the SRO calendar. Also, knowing how much Kunos love the Nords I think they'd love to put it into ACC. It would be the perfect "grand finale" to the adventure that was ACC.

On the other hand they certainly do not want to "cannibalize" the sales of AC2 when it comes out, and AC2 definitely needs the Nordschleife. AC2 will have a pretty daunting task ahead of it, beating or at least getting close to two big guys like AC and ACC, both of which show no sign of aging. Never mind that they decided to also develop their own graphics engine..
 
Premium
I can see it being the flagship marketing tool for AC2, Using it to draw the last few dollars out of ACC would devalue it.
 
Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the user interface of AC2 is already completed, they may have the menus, content and game core features almost finished but the game builds they use internally to test still being using ACC's HUD as a placeholder until they complete the real AC2 HUD.

I'm not saying that what Misha tried can't be the track for ACC. I just said that there is also a chance that it may end up not being it and getting hyped about it can be a mistake.
Your reply to traind's response makes no sense. You said they were at least a year away from at least early access of AC2 and the user factually corrected you saying the developers themselves have stated a release date of Spring 2024, to which you start rambling about user interface? The user never even said anything about the interface or track and what sim it was for.
 
Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the user interface of AC2 is already completed, they may have the menus, content and game core features almost finished but the game builds they use internally to test still being using ACC's HUD as a placeholder until they complete the real AC2 HUD.

that makes 0 sense.
AC"2" and ACC run on different engines, why would there be a "ACC HUD as a placeholder" in AC2? It's not something that you can transfer around between engines.
 
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The IGTC schedule for 2024 includes the Nordschleife as they (SRO) signed a deal with ADAC to make the Nurburgring 24 Hours part of the series, and that has been known for months. Hardly a surprise that it would show up in ACC at some point.

With that said, there is still so much official SRO content missing from ACC than having this jump ahead of everything else in the queue is just pathetic. We're talking liveries, cars (models) and tracks. Not just one or two, but dozens upon dozens.

There briefly was a Callaway C7.R GT3 in GTWC Asia last year for example, before it was wrecked and couldn't return to the series, the overwhelming majority of GT4 liveries and tracks are missing (as well as a couple of cars), some tracks from GTWC USA are also missing, along with the liveries for their cars. Quite a few IGTC liveries are still missing as well.

People cry about the Nordschleife (still) not being in ACC when the so-called official SRO game lacks about 80% of the content.

If lack of manpower is an issue, just hire modders as external contractors. You don't have to pay nearly as many taxes on them that way, because they're not employees.

Plenty of them have already made a lot of the missing liveries (and illegally ripped the cars to AC in the process), I'm sure they'd be more than willing to help out with some form of remuneration and a bunch of free Steam keys for both ACC and the future AC2 on top of it.
 
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Your reply to traind's response makes no sense. You said they were at least a year away from at least early access of AC2 and the user factually corrected you saying the developers themselves have stated a release date of Spring 2024, to which you start rambling about user interface? The user never even said anything about the interface or track and what sim it was for.

You say that it didn't make sense, but once I read the message and I understood that I got the date miserably wrong, I never challenged the user response at all. I just clarified my point, as it implied that my initial point was nullified by stating a wrong time frame for the release.

I felt that even with the correction for the right date what I meant to say in my original post still stands: with the little information that we had we couldn't know if this was ACC or an early build of AC2 and hyping it could end up setting us for frustration.

Now with hindsight from the response from Stefano we know that it has to be ACC. But he isn't a normal fan like us, he was a developer in Kunos during ACC's development and knows both the game and everybody inside the company inside out, we as fans lack all that background. I speculated with an example and turns out that I got it wrong.

The rambling: continuing my clarification after the message of the other user I talked about the UI because the main point of the people here arguing that this had to be ACC was a small portion of the image that apparently showed the ACC HUD. A HUD is a part of the UI. I speculated a potential case to illustrate that there could be possibilities for the game not neccesarily being ACC that we can't foresee.

I used that example in where I speculated that AC2 still is unfinished so maybe the HUD could be a place holder until the devs did the real AC2 one. Stefano proved that I got wrong that example, but I also never stated that the example as a fact.
 
I'm sure the majority of people here would have happily done without COTA for the sake of having Sebring.
hell yeah. I'll prefer more an American Track Pack 2 (Sebring, Road America, VIR or Sonoma) than Nord.
On EU side we miss Magny-Cours (2020) and Hockenheim (2022)...
 
but why do they need to finish the game ? why can't they drop dlc as per the Racing schedule?

will they again launch acc2 after ac2? why can't it go on?
 
The IGTC schedule for 2024 includes the Nordschleife as they (SRO) signed a deal with ADAC to make the Nurburgring 24 Hours part of the series, and that has been known for months. Hardly a surprise that it would show up in ACC at some point.

With that said, there is still so much official SRO content missing from ACC than having this jump ahead of everything else in the queue is just pathetic. We're talking liveries, cars (models) and tracks. Not just one or two, but dozens upon dozens.
Thats not true, ACC is almost complete. ACC was / is the official game for the Blancpain GT Series which turned into the GT World Challenge Europe (neither Asia nor America). They also released the 2019 IGTC, 2019 British GT and 2019 GT4 Europe as DLC while the american tracks purposefully werent named GTWC America as to not build up any expectations.

Out of the content promised (2019 IGTC, 2019 British GT, 2019 GT4 Europe, 2018-2023 GTWC EU) only Magny-Cours and Hockenheim are still missing (they tried to scan Magny-Cours but then Covid hit and Hockenheim has only been on the calender since this season). Kunos also said that 2023 and the GT2 DLC will end the development of ACC and with AC2 due for release in the second quarter of 2024 theres little reason to believe ACC will get the Nordschleife.

Edit: This aged like milk lol
 
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