Assetto Corsa 2 launching Spring 2024

Assetto Corsa 2.jpg
The much anticipated true and faithful follow-up to the first Assetto Corsa has had its release period surface online. We can expect an early 2024 release!

Image credit: Kunos Simulazioni

The original Assetto Corsa launched in late 2014, and it’s still going on strong today. It has become the darling of the online sim racing modding scene. It didn’t matter what kind of racing anyone wanted to do. If the player wanted vintage Grand Prix racing, modern day sports prototypes or even a massive dinosaur, AC could do it.

In 2018, its GT-racing focused cousin Assetto Corsa Competizione was released. Whilst a very solid sim, the lack of variety limited its appeal. The sim racing community has been waiting with baited breath for news of Assetto Corsa 2 and when it would be releasing. Now it seems we have an idea.

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AC2 Spring 2024​

In an image posted by video game industry analyst MauroNL on Twitter. It seemed to be a quarterly financial report gave us the information. It recounts the information on the first two instalments. Right at the bottom, it specifies Spring 2024 as the expected release date for the second version of Assetto Corsa.

Spring traditionally runs from 21 March to 21 June. This will mean just over nine years will have passed between the release of the first and second iterations of Assetto Corsa.

Best of Both Worlds​

The original Assetto Corsa may still be the standard for a lot of online racing, but it is very much limited due to being an older game. With just four years between the original and ACC, the quality of the graphics improved exponentially.

But like has already been said, ACC is specifically GT-racing focussed and has less to process. It was developed on Unreal Engine 4 whilst we have seen how Unreal Engine 5 looks with a racing sim through Rennsport.

Here’s every bit of hope that AC2 – or whatever it may end up being called – can have the variety of AC but the refinement of ACC.
About author
Luca (OverTake)
Biggest sim racing esports fan in the world.

Comments

Nope you didn't.

Let me break it down for you again.

1.) Increasing and maintaining an active playerbase is important, otherwise the game is dead and no one even bothers checking online. Streamlined elements such as freeroaming in-between races keeps the playerbase engaged and online more often.

2.) Incorporating freeroaming does not negatively impact you in any way because firstly you don't have to do it if you don't want to, and secondly, the playerbase which it attracts can be segmented according to a ranking system, so your races are always quality.

3.) The simracing events do not need to be 5 lap sprints. They can be full race weekends, so again no downside.

What exactly of these 3 points do you have a problem with.
1) You dont need to pander to casuals for this to happen. People still play rf2 or ACC or F1 codies with traditional simulation games.

2)i think that is a waste of time and a waste of resources that has no place in a focused sim. It will just dillute the direction of the game, and its playerbase. Like how ridiculous it is to driver supercars in an F1 game (looking at you EA).

3) The race events can be all they want, but if people are roaming or doing car collecting, they are not practicing or maximizing their seat time for the upcoming race, whatever that race might be. In all my years of league admining, seat time is invaluable and the most important factor to have clean good racing. Making it a dudebro game with racing on the side would do nothing to help this, quite the opposite. Besides, like i said, i dont think these overlap at all, so you would have massive amounts of users separated anyways.

We had enough of games trying the jack of all trades. Its time to get this back on track, and have proper focused games that work as intended for racing.
 
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Oh i did adress your points, and i will summarize:

- roaming is of no interest to me, and a big number of simracers ( i dare to say the majority)

- i dont want or need simracing devs to pander to that crowd, or do their own versions of TDU

- AC1 has been dead in the water for any serious racing for a long time, and lives on just as car collecting game with rip content and mods, and is used more as a forza horizon on the cheap than anything simracing related

- If kunos wants to follow that path, fine by me, they will get their money, but that wont make a good simracing game as far as i am concerned, nor will it bring anything good to the simracing genre, not even more players, because like i said, the overlap is small.
Ok, I appreciate the thoughtful reply. To that I would say in order to expand simracing beyond a niche state, there needs to be streamlined elements like freeroaming.

And it does come down to execution. I'm sure you would agree if freeroaming led to a much larger active community which allowed for more races of the quality you're accustomed to, you wouldn't take issue with it. But you're just highly skeptical of the actual end result.

Thats understandable. My take is the wider simracing community will adopt whichever platform has the highest activity and quality physics. Simple as that. The thing is, to ensure the activity is high, means there must be an incentive to keep players logging in and staying logged in. So that essentially boils down to 1.) mass-appeal or accessibility, 2.) minimizing idling or downtime between races, 3.) a ranked system so there is always a goal, and 4.) perhaps adopt "community challenges" which change over time as well.

These are all modern "casual" elements which sims have long ignored, but have proven to boost online engagement across many genres of games. It could work for simracing too without sacrificing anything (depending on execution). For example your point about seat time and practice. Ranking solves this easily, as players will naturally work to improve their quality of play just to move up. Seen it a million times.
 
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Ok, I appreciate the thoughtful reply. To that I would say in order to expand simracing beyond a niche state, there needs to be streamlined elements like freeroaming.

And it does come down to execution. I'm sure you would agree if freeroaming led to a much larger active community which allowed for more races of the quality you're accustomed to, you wouldn't take issue with it. But you're just highly skeptical of the actual end result.

Thats understandable. My take is the wider simracing community will adopt whichever platform has the highest activity and quality physics. Simple as that. The thing is, to ensure the activity is high, means there must be an incentive to keep players logging in and staying logged in. So that essentially boils down to 1.) mass-appeal or accessibility, 2.) minimizing idling or downtime between races, 3.) a ranked system so there is always a goal, and 4.) perhaps adopt "community challenges" which change over time as well.

These are all modern "casual" elements which sims have long ignored, but have proven to boost online engagement across many genres of games. It could work for simracing too without sacrificing anything (depending on execution). For example your point about seat time and practice. Ranking solves this easily, as players will naturally work to improve their quality of play just to move up. Seen it a million times.
That works well for casual games like FPS and others.

I doesnt work well with niche games like Flight sims, or simracing games (the definiton ones).

I am skeptical because AC is actually living proof of this. It has a much larger daily player count than the other sims, and yet, almost nobody is properly racing in it (mainly because racing it in its lacking many features, but i digress). AC started as a strong racing game, but its numbers dwindled on that front overtime. Simracing System was touted as the be all end all thing that was needed to make AC the true online racing sim and "take the fight" to iRacing. But guess what, it never happend, becaused again, these communities don't overlap.

The ranking and safety ratings and whatnot dont improve the quality of racing noticeably, they just fragment the userbase even more, because what you want is not to punish people who were unlucky to get rammed by some idiot, you want people to take this almost as seriously as they would take a real race, and that is not possible if you casualize it even more.

But again, this is my opinion, you have yours, so i respect that.
 
Isn't sim racing supposed to simulate some racing discipline, otherwise it's just a driving game.
Nope. A simulator is a software that simulates something that happens in real life while trying to be as accurate as the devs can in the way the sim represent the reality.

A racing simulator simulates how a real car behaves in a real world enviroment. I think that what the other user have in his mind isn't turning AC into TDU, dumb down the game and that's it.

I think that the user is up to something here. I think that he is imagining a concept of simracing that goes a step further than any developer has tried before. His concept is fresh and interesting in my own imagination.

I don't see that kind of concept ever taking off. Only an indy studio can have the balls to try to do something that bold and ambitious with hardcore physics. A massive studio have the resources to do it properly but they would include dumbed down physics and micropayments everywhere killing the concept itself. The idea isn't bad on itself, and simracing don't neccesarily needs to be tied to a real life racing event. Because AC doesn't simulate any real life racing event and it is still a racing simulator. People drift, rally, do track days and freeroam already on AC, and it still is a racing simulator.

The way I see the user experience in the kind of game that the other user imagined doesn't need to be bad to any kind of simracing user, not even you. Just picture in your mind this kind of user experience: after the game started you are in the classic UI that we all know from any simracing game ever. And from there it is exactly the same as any other simulator: you can change any setting of the game, go to a list of servers, or create one of your servers open or private like usual, or even have match making and a good rating system.

If the user don't like to be involved in the kind of TDU free roam experience of the simulator, then the user can keep himself in the classic UI and ignore the other part of the game as it is going to be intrascendental to his own experience in the game. In the classic UI the user is goin to have exactly the same identical experience as in any other simulator ever having instant access to any car of the game from the start.

But if the user want to access the free roaming experience, then the camera changes and you appear inside of your virtual home like in TDU. Then you can purchase and collect cars from a car dealership or second hand market from other game users with a currency system similar to gran turismo. That system gives you credits for your racing results multiplied by your safety rating, you can purchase new houses and all the kind of things you could do in the TDU world.

In that open map you can go with your free roam car to a tunner workshop to change the same kind of things that you can change in your cars in gran turismo. But with that car you can't race in serious races of the hardcore simracing experience to avoid people appearing with over the top tunned cars to serious events meant to simulate a real life racing series. In those events you only can take part in a car meant for the classic experience of the game, for example a GT3 car that follows the SRO regulations, or a WEC prototype that follows the FIA rules for WEC.

With your free roaming cars you can race in legal and "ilegal racing" events inside of the TDU aspect of the game. You can be stopped by police, loose credits up to the point of loosing all your virtual world possessions. The users can also do track days with friends in the virtual world or in the tracks of the game but in servers separate from the serious interface of the game, organize a travel on the free roam world with friends like some supercar owners and road bikes owners do in real life, do drifting, simulate being police officers having to pursuit other users, the posibilities are endless.

When you get tired of that kind of experience or you want to participate in a serious event, then from the free roam world you go to your virtual home and click on your virtual laptop and then classical UI appears again in full screen. From there you can go to the lobby and pick what race to go and experience the classical simracing experience with the same level of accuracy, rules and with a good rating system, a matchmaking that truly works and a stats page with a lot of leaderboards to compare yourself with others.

It can be done, it is still simracing, and it can create a new niche of simracing market for casuals. And the best of all is that it doesn't need to be detrimental to the user experience of hardcore simracers that only take part in leagues, official events or competitions.
 
That works well for casual games like FPS and others.

I doesnt work well with niche games like Flight sims, or simracing games (the definiton ones).

I am skeptical because AC is actually living proof of this. It has a much larger daily player count than the other sims, and yet, almost nobody is properly racing in it (mainly because racing it in its lacking many features, but i digress). AC started as a strong racing game, but its numbers dwindled on that front overtime. Simracing System was touted as the be all end all thing that was needed to make AC the true online racing sim and "take the fight" to iRacing. But guess what, it never happend, becaused again, these communities don't overlap.

The ranking and safety ratings and whatnot dont improve the quality of racing noticeably, they just fragment the userbase even more, because what you want is not to punish people who were unlucky to get rammed by some idiot, you want people to take this almost as seriously as they would take a real race, and that is not possible if you casualize it even more.

But again, this is my opinion, you have yours, so i respect that.
I see where you're coming from. I think AC lends itself to online freeroaming mostly because its accessible, not necessarily because its filled with players adverse to racing.

For example, if AC had an option where you can tag yourself as "open for racing" (while in freeroam) and then it prompted you once enough people were online, that would sort out the main reasons why people don't bother. And then in the pre-race lobby the group could vote on the details, etc.

As for ranking, its not a perfect option, but it cuts down on the bulk of incidents. Of course, its all about the quality of implementation and not screwing over people who are innocent. However if it did work properly, the sim would be accessible to all without issue, and that is ideal.
 
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D
Nope. A simulator is a software that simulates something that happens in real life while trying to be as accurate as the devs can in the way the sim represent the reality.
Racing simulator simulates auto racing.
In this context, I don't care about the rest, there is The Sims 4 to "simulate real life" that matches your definition.
You can have driving game with good physics, story, street racing, roaming and what not. I'd play this game myself, same as I played Forza Horizon, but this is not Racing Simulator, and it has nothing to do with elitism, sorry, it's just a completely different category.
 
Nope. A simulator is a software that simulates something that happens in real life while trying to be as accurate as the devs can in the way the sim represent the reality.

A racing simulator simulates how a real car behaves in a real world enviroment. I think that what the other user have in his mind isn't turning AC into TDU, dumb down the game and that's it.

I think that the user is up to something here. I think that he is imagining a concept of simracing that goes a step further than any developer has tried before. His concept is fresh and interesting in my own imagination.

I don't see that kind of concept ever taking off. Only an indy studio can have the balls to try to do something that bold and ambitious with hardcore physics. A massive studio have the resources to do it properly but they would include dumbed down physics and micropayments everywhere killing the concept itself. The idea isn't bad on itself, and simracing don't neccesarily needs to be tied to a real life racing event. Because AC doesn't simulate any real life racing event and it is still a racing simulator. People drift, rally, do track days and freeroam already on AC, and it still is a racing simulator.

The way I see the user experience in the kind of game that the other user imagined doesn't need to be bad to any kind of simracing user, not even you. Just picture in your mind this kind of user experience: after the game started you are in the classic UI that we all know from any simracing game ever. And from there it is exactly the same as any other simulator: you can change any setting of the game, go to a list of servers, or create one of your servers open or private like usual, or even have match making and a good rating system.

If the user don't like to be involved in the kind of TDU free roam experience of the simulator, then the user can keep himself in the classic UI and ignore the other part of the game as it is going to be intrascendental to his own experience in the game. In the classic UI the user is goin to have exactly the same identical experience as in any other simulator ever having instant access to any car of the game from the start.

But if the user want to access the free roaming experience, then the camera changes and you appear inside of your virtual home like in TDU. Then you can purchase and collect cars from a car dealership or second hand market from other game users with a currency system similar to gran turismo. That system gives you credits for your racing results multiplied by your safety rating, you can purchase new houses and all the kind of things you could do in the TDU world.

In that open map you can go with your free roam car to a tunner workshop to change the same kind of things that you can change in your cars in gran turismo. But with that car you can't race in serious races of the hardcore simracing experience to avoid people appearing with over the top tunned cars to serious events meant to simulate a real life racing series. In those events you only can take part in a car meant for the classic experience of the game, for example a GT3 car that follows the SRO regulations, or a WEC prototype that follows the FIA rules for WEC.

With your free roaming cars you can race in legal and "ilegal racing" events inside of the TDU aspect of the game. You can be stopped by police, loose credits up to the point of loosing all your virtual world possessions. The users can also do track days with friends in the virtual world or in the tracks of the game but in servers separate from the serious interface of the game, organize a travel on the free roam world with friends like some supercar owners and road bikes owners do in real life, do drifting, simulate being police officers having to pursuit other users, the posibilities are endless.

When you get tired of that kind of experience or you want to participate in a serious event, then from the free roam world you go to your virtual home and click on your virtual laptop and then classical UI appears again in full screen. From there you can go to the lobby and pick what race to go and experience the classical simracing experience with the same level of accuracy, rules and with a good rating system, a matchmaking that truly works and a stats page with a lot of leaderboards to compare yourself with others.

It can be done, it is still simracing, and it can create a new niche of simracing market for casuals. And the best of all is that it doesn't need to be detrimental to the user experience of hardcore simracers that only take part in leagues, official events or competitions.
What you are describing is basically a fusion of Forza horizon with the normal Forza. That is not simracing.

This whole thing just proved my point that the vast majority of AC users, and for extension AC today, has nothing to do with simracing.

I have a better idea, give me a game that is just like the F1 codies, with top physics, and a full WEC license and better online integration for organizing races. Thats what i want as a simracer. Of course, AC2 won't be this, if its anything like AC1.
 
I see where you're coming from. I think AC lends itself to online freeroaming mostly because its accessible, not necessarily because its filled with players adverse to racing.

For example, if AC had an option where you can tag yourself as "open for racing" (while in freeroam) and then it prompted you once enough people were online, that would sort out the main reasons why people don't bother. And then in the pre-race lobby the group could vote on the details, etc.

As for ranking, its not a perfect option, but it cuts down on the bulk of incidents. Of course, its all about the quality of implementation and not screwing over people who are innocent. However if it did work properly, the sim would be accessible to all without issue, and that is ideal.
Except like i said before, simracingsystem (SRS) is a thing for AC, it's been up for years, and its getting more and more empty...
 
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Premium

Now if you know of any santioned auto racing that involves roaming around the streets looking for people to race against in your WEC prototype, i am all hears...
I know you are trying to make a point but i am not buying it. We don't agree on the definition of simracing and that is fine.

Give other people some space to have an opinion as well please.

I for one would be delighted to buy a Google Maps Racing Simulator. Can't wait for tech being available in the future to race virtually on the streets where i normally need to behave in real life. If i can do this with friends online, even better.

Can't be bothered one bit if this is sanctioned by real life autosport series or not.
 
Except like i said before, simracingsystem (SRS) is a thing for AC, it's been up for years, and its getting more and more empty...
SRS didn't grow because it's run by one guy who demands people send him photo IDs and use their real names to race, in an era where basically no one uses their real name on the Internet for any purpose. Same with LFM and their license requirements. It's just senseless gatekeeping that doesn't make the racing better.
 
I for one would be delighted to buy a Google Maps Racing Simulator. Can't wait for tech being available in the future to race virtually on the streets where i normally need to behave in real life.

This is why i eventually spent all the damn money on MSFS2020 and even the hardware upgrades to get it running well in VR, I fly with my mates, we pick someones house and a few waypoints, set a max agl limit and race over the google maps visible below (using a hack to use google instead of bing), seeing your own neighbourhood and the street you commute on below is AWESOME!

I would buy an open map sim racing game that can offer this.
 
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I know you are trying to make a point but i am not buying it. We don't agree on the definition of simracing and that is fine.

Give other people some space to have an opinion as well please.

I for one would be delighted to buy a Google Maps Racing Simulator. Can't wait for tech being available in the future to race virtually on the streets where i normally need to behave in real life. If i can do this with friends online, even better.

Can't be bothered one bit if this is sanctioned by real life autosport series or not.
Well that is fair enough.
SRS didn't grow because it's run by one guy who demands people send him photo IDs and use their real names to race, in an era where basically no one uses their real name on the Internet for any purpose. Same with LFM and their license requirements. It's just senseless gatekeeping that doesn't make the racing better.
That didn't stop iracing being a success, even with a monthly subscription to boot.
 
I trust KUNOS to get it right. The only concern I have is VR performance. Most important for me is high quality VR. If it doesn't have that then I'll just stick with AC.
 
And yet we have several cars and tracks from ACC in AC.

I'll say it now, and I'd bet my house on it, there will be no modding in AC2.
Not totally sure how they got away with this long anyway, PCars models Forza models GT models rfactor2 models and tracks all in AC and seemingly no one has ever asked Kunos to stop that.

No chance they will do that again.
Big question should really be "what will they do with AC towards that date?
If they don't kill it then AC2 will struggle to take over AC or get anywhere near 28 million units sold.
I think kunos will kill AC by making every thus far incompatible.

I hoe they don't, so no point shouting at me, but trust me if i was them i would.
RemindMe! 1 year
Can't wait to move into my new house! Where do you live? :laugh:
 
AC2: up to date graphic engine, hopefully photorealistic, and one of the best physics in racing sims. All the amazing modding community content created for AC, easily ported to AC2! :inlove:

I'd love to see more populated tracks. The more objects, trees around the tracks, the better for immersion. I hope Kunos will port to AC2 everything Custom Shader Patch and SOL/Pure gave to AC, and more.
 
Well that is fair enough.

That didn't stop iracing being a success, even with a monthly subscription to boot.
Do you own a real life Race Car?

I do and I do like to still get it registrated every two years for road use..

I really don´t know why you are so uptight about this, maybe you should talk to some real life racing drivers how they think about this.

How does it come that people who spent the most time in their basement strapped in fake race seats try to be much more gatekeeping than real life drivers with FIA License?

You should broaden your horizon instead of trying to tell others what to do..

I attend a few very strict online vintage racing leagues, but I also like to drive those cars around a scenic route to chill after and work watch a youtube video while doing this.

In the summertime I take one of my real cars for a spin, but when it´s winter or shitty weather it´s totally fine do drive a free roam map.

Do you think the Targa Florio is unworthy, because it´s basically a "free roam" map?

How about a (Classic Car) Rally and Hillclimbs?
I really like to attend them in real life and to drive those roads in virtual reality.

What´s your problem with people having a different opinion than you?
You really should be a little bit more open to other peoples likes.

I disagree with a lot of simracers opinions and things that they do, because it´s pretty much ridiculous or downright laughable to real life drivers.

Still there´s usually no judgement about those things.
Everybody should be able and allowed to do what makes them happy, without people talking down on them.

Such behavior is the last thing this hobby needs, right after cheating!

I really hope you are not like this in real life and I just got a bad expression by reading your comments.

Nonetheless, I wish you a great weekend and hope you have some fun races :)
 
Do you own a real life Race Car?

I do and I do like to still get it registrated every two years for road use..

I really don´t know why you are so uptight about this, maybe you should talk to some real life racing drivers how they think about this.

How does it come that people who spent the most time in their basement strapped in fake race seats try to be much more gatekeeping than real life drivers with FIA License?

You should broaden your horizon instead of trying to tell others what to do..

I attend a few very strict online vintage racing leagues, but I also like to drive those cars around a scenic route to chill after and work watch a youtube video while doing this.

In the summertime I take one of my real cars for a spin, but when it´s winter or shitty weather it´s totally fine do drive a free roam map.

Do you think the Targa Florio is unworthy, because it´s basically a "free roam" map?

How about a (Classic Car) Rally and Hillclimbs?
I really like to attend them in real life and to drive those roads in virtual reality.

What´s your problem with people having a different opinion than you?
You really should be a little bit more open to other peoples likes.

I disagree with a lot of simracers opinions and things that they do, because it´s pretty much ridiculous or downright laughable to real life drivers.

Still there´s usually no judgement about those things.
Everybody should be able and allowed to do what makes them happy, without people talking down on them.

Such behavior is the last thing this hobby needs, right after cheating!

I really hope you are not like this in real life and I just got a bad expression by reading your comments.

Nonetheless, I wish you a great weekend and hope you have some fun races :)
Look, cut the condescending crap. I own various sports cars that i work on myself, and i had plenty of time driving in tracks and roads, as well as talking with real racing drivers, even having one at home.

Second, i didnt tell anybody what to do nor did i say anybody is anything less for driving other games. I play other racing games too, nothing wrong with that.

Third, i have no problems with anybody having a different opinion than me. I didnt insult anybody , i debated people, learn the difference please.

And lastly, what this hobby needs is different depending on who you ask.

A month ago this hobby needed that people payed massive atention to that Rennsport esports event, that would save us and all our hobby from irrelevance. Guess what, nobody watched it, and now esports is just rampant cheating (it always was, but money brings that to light i guess).

Now it will be roaming lobbies that will save us from irrelevance.

My opinion is simple. We need new GPLs, new GTRs, new Rfactor1s , racing games , focused, feature rich, and free of cripling bugs. Then the users would come.

Likewise i wish the same for you :)
 
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