Could Project Cars 4 be on the way?

Could Project Cars 4 be on the way_.jpg
Ian Bell the former Slightly Mad Studios CEO has tweeted today “If PCars 4 is awesome it was all me. If it isn't. I left 6 months ago”

This is the first time Ian Bell who left Slightly Mad Studios 6 months ago has mentioned Project Cars 4 in over a year and yes it’s not much, but you could assume that he knows what’s going on with the PCars 4 project.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1508706106042097670

It’s been two years since Project Cars 3 came out, the third instalment in the Project Cars franchise didn’t go down well with fans of Project Cars. The first two Project Cars titles were hardcore sim racers and though they had their flaws (as do all sims in some way), there was a loyal following.

During the two years since Slightly Mad Studios released PCars 3, the studio was sold to Codemasters and then Codemasters was bought out by Electronic Arts.

Most fans of the franchise would agree that they don’t want another Project Cars 3, however it would be fascinating to see what the madness game engine is capable of on the latest generations of console.

Would you be excited for Project Cars 4?
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About author
Damian Reed
Damian Reed
PC geek, gamer, content creator, and passionate sim racer.
I live life a 1/4 mile at a time, it takes me ages to get anywhere!

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Wilko Jones
Premium
Can Ian Bell's next car racing game even be titled Project CARS. Isn't that name now owned by EA? Did he get the IP when he left?
 
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delpinsky
Kevin Troschinski said:
"Could Project Cars 4 be on the way?" --> God forbid .... :notworthy:
Click to expand...
Well, why not? You don't pay for it in advance, so if it's gonna suck, you won't buy it, but just in case it's gonna be a decent sim...cade, then many people will be happy to try it out. For me any sim or simcade is welcome. I was in the bandwagon of pCARS, in 2011, so I have nice memories of that experience, following a project since its very early days.
 
L
Leemz said:
They should've never abandoned PCars2. PCars3 was a joke. If they'd stuck to improving PCars2 I think it would be one of the best sims by now.
Click to expand...

The gaming space has worked like that since forever, you launch a game, patch a few bugs... start marketing buzz for the sequel that it's gonna be "Oh so much better".
Simracing have been an exception to that, with Rfactor 2 being here for years, same with AC/ACC, the AMSs, R3E... and of course Iracing.
SMS however has always operated like that, they rather cash in with a new title instead of trying to extend the shelf life to the one they already have.
And with EA handling their leash i can't see this MO changing.
I'd say there's huge possibilty for them to go with splashy marketing at launch and be done before a year.

I'm not at all excited for another PCars, i didn't like the first 2 all that much and never tried the 3rd one and i have no idea in which direction they'll go with their basic game design now, GT7 "killer"? Better PC2?
 
R.Man
gianlucaP said:
Not me for sure.
I don't need "influencers" or sponsored reviewers to help me in my decisions.
If the developer is good I can buy at day one, like it is with Playdead (Limbo and Inside). If it's not, I will search for a demo or, if there isn't one, a pirate copy and make my decision based on that.
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You have so much free time to spend...also not all sim have demos and not all sims are pirated. As for me I listen to the influencers, I just use my intelligence to compare what they say and extract my own conclusion. Why reinvent the wheel... It's a 2 hours job at max with very low risk of buying a bad product. I just have to be attentive to understand which influencers have credible opinions because some of them are on payroll and some other don't have not enough personnality to criticize a product, some of them would praise anything to get good relations with sim studios. As for today I could dress a list of sim racing influencers with data showing if they are credible or not and why they are not credible.
 
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wolftree
MadDriver11 said:
:roflmao: where did you see that announcement?
People really go in forums and literally invent things that have not link with real world...
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When you're a haterboy on the RD forum, there is no need to stick to the truth. Just make up endless strawmen and shoot them down, then go upvote a bunch of people doing the same in every thread on the sim you don't like and don't even play.
 
Damage Inc
BackMarkerZ said:
'The first two Project Cars titles were hardcore sim racers...'
^^ THIS, made me chuckle :roflmao:
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Enlighten us all to what exactly constitutes a "hardcore" sim?.....Bear in mind unnatural "difficulty" is not necessarily "realistic".
 
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RyokoMaruyama
MadDriver11 said:
:roflmao: where did you see that announcement?
People really go in forums and literally invent things that have not link with real world...
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But what's really different from AMS2 to PCARS2? In the same way of what's different between AMS1 and rFactor 1. Everything that's been touched upon has been sort of add-ons, but not true evolutions of the respective engines. Essentially they're 'roided' up mods, much like what you'd see with AC1 and Content Manager, but on a more professional (ideally) scale. Once you get down to it there's not really much new about AMS2 compared to PCARS2, down to even how the UX works. The physics changes are pretty much subjective.

Edit: To be fair to Reiza, the rF1 version of the engine is way more well known due to age and has been taken apart countless times, while SMS' Madness Engine has only been in Reiza's hands for third party apps.
 
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Foffy
Wilko Jones said:
Can Ian Bell's next car racing game even be titled Project CARS. Isn't that name now owned by EA? Did he get the IP when he left?
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Presuming he's been given a non-compete clause as expressed in a few tweets, EA is likely to believe he's going to make a competing racing game to the project he previously worked on. The IP is owned by Codemasters, which means EA, if I recall correctly. Companies very rarely let IP be sold off when staff leave the larger company. I can only really think of this happening with IO Interactive being given the rights to Hitman when they purchased themselves out from under Square-Enix.

Assuming they play their cards right, I could see EA use Project Cars 4 as a title to lean on in 2023 if Codemasters WRC game, reported to be the biggest project Codemasters has ever worked on, misses 2023 and is instead a 2024 release as it's aimed to be a "AAA" experience. No idea what that means for a rally game, though.
 
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Kyuubeey
RyokoMaruyama said:
But what's really different from AMS2 to PCARS2? In the same way of what's different between AMS1 and rFactor 1. Everything that's been touched upon has been sort of add-ons, but not true evolutions of the respective engines. Essentially they're 'roided' up mods, much like what you'd see with AC1 and Content Manager, but on a more professional (ideally) scale. Once you get down to it there's not really much new about AMS2 compared to PCARS2, down to even how the UX works. The physics changes are pretty much subjective.

Edit: To be fair to Reiza, the rF1 version of the engine is way more well known due to age and has been taken apart countless times, while SMS' Madness Engine has only been in Reiza's hands for third party apps.
Click to expand...
The parameters in the cars in AMS2 are probably much better, and there has been quite a bit of implementation work for the physics.

I wouldn't be so quick to claim that CSP's physics changes for AC1 are "less professional", seeing as they're made by an actual professional, for professional use. By definition they're more "professional". Sim devs wish they could do stuff like that.
 
M
RyokoMaruyama said:
But what's really different from AMS2 to PCARS2? In the same way of what's different between AMS1 and rFactor 1. Everything that's been touched upon has been sort of add-ons, but not true evolutions of the respective engines. Essentially they're 'roided' up mods, much like what you'd see with AC1 and Content Manager, but on a more professional (ideally) scale. Once you get down to it there's not really much new about AMS2 compared to PCARS2, down to even how the UX works. The physics changes are pretty much subjective.

Edit: To be fair to Reiza, the rF1 version of the engine is way more well known due to age and has been taken apart countless times, while SMS' Madness Engine has only been in Reiza's hands for third party apps.
Click to expand...
Pretty much all.. Significant parts of physics have been changed: from tires models to differential, to turbos simulation and we can go on and on. The FFB too which has been deeply reworked based on their experience with AMS1.
Sounds are almost completely different. A person coming from a completely different sim has been brought in to swap the remainder of PC2 stuff in that sense.
There are tracks that belong to Brazilian series that were not in PC2 and even those that were in PC2 have been done from scratch in the mesh.
UI is slowly changing skin (ICM is the last thing, but there were others) additional features like historical weather for the past 50 years has been added.
That is not to say it's all perfect and all that needs attention is done, but neglecting and bending reality just to broadcast fake news based only on personal sympathy for this or that sim isn't helping the sim community at large.
 

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