GTR Revival: Straight4 Studios Needs Your Help

Straight 4 studios.jpg
In the middle of developing its new game, GTR Revival, Straight4 Studios is looking for help as it determines the game's key focus. The team is seemingly looking at recreating one epic moment in motorsport history, but can't decide between four options. Now's your chance to shape a simulator.

Rising from the ashes of what was the team behind the legendary GTR 2, Straight4 Studios may sound like a thoroughly unimpressive name. Honestly, why not call it V12 or Flat 6. Anyway, the team has slowly been releasing teasers of its newest project and is now looking for help from the community.

Straight4 Studios, headed by Ian Bell, is currently working on its next venture GTR Revival. The game is set to follow on from the legendary status of the GTR series which focused on the FIA GT Series of its day. GT1 and GT2 cars roaring around some of the best circuits in the world certainly made the old Simbin titles great.

Still looking to focus on a fan favourite series and era, the development team is asking for the opinion of the community as to which specific moment in motorsport it is to recreate. Four options feature on the poll found on the Straight4 Studios website.

Late-1990s BTCC​

The late-1990s were an impressive time in the British Touring Car Championship. The Super Tourer regulations had just hit a point at which budgets were exceeding those of Formula 1, the cars were mind-boggling pieces of engineering and the drivers appeared to be super heroes.


Ever since the original TOCA Touring Car games, this is an era that has lacked representation in the simracing industry. However, a recent and popular mod in Assetto Corsa has brought this time back from the back of our minds.

A game focusing on the ins and outs of the Super Tourer era would be a fantastic proposition. However, the other periods mentioned in the poll have seen even less love in simracing's history.

Historic Trans Am​

Today, Trans Am is a relatively unknown form of purist motorsport. Massive V8 engines, H-pattern gearboxes and heavy chassis make for a NASCAR road course racing on steroids experience. But back in the championship's early days, around the late-1960s and early-1970s, the championship thrived with road-relevant muscle cars on the best American circuits.


Models like the Dodge Challenger, Ford Mustang and AMC Javelin went head to head in a race on Sunday, sell on Monday ethos. While the V8-powered muscle cars dominated the over 2-litre class, European saloons took to the under-2-litre category. Alfa Romeos, BMWs and even Fiats raced on the same weekends as the big boys.

Straight4 Studios is offering the simracing community the chance to race in this era of motorsport. A niche national championship much forgotten by many, there must surely be a fan base out there that would love to see this idea come to life.

Can Am​

Much like Trans Am, Can Am was a regional series that travelled the North American continent. Motorsport fans may have heard of cars like the McLaren M8F and Ferrari 712M. These massively powerful, significantly light machines were absolute rocket ships, testament to what happens when you give manufacturers a near-empty rule book and infinite budgets.


Often surpassing the 1000hp mark in qualifying, these Group 7 cars raced around the North American circuit. Or they did until the sport became too expensive compared to other forms of motorsport around the mid-1970s.

The Canadian-American Challenge Cup thrived in the early-1970s just before the series began to tumble. This is the era Straight4 is interested in covering. Other than the odd impressive, yet uncontrollable racer, Can-Am and Group 7 have remained anonymous throughout the course of racing games. Could this be the series' time to flourish in the eyes of simracers?

1973 World Sportscars​

In 2023, we are entering a golden age of enduance racing. The FIA WEC and IMSA championship haven't seen such top-class participation in a number of decades. But fifty years ago, the sportscar racing scene was also seemingly living one of its greatest times to date.


Mixing Group 5 open top prototype sportscars and Group 4 GT racers, the series visited countless infamous events. Le Mans, Daytona, the Targa Florio and the 1000km of the Nurburgring. All these events were contested as part of the WSC and made for some of the most exciting endurance racing seen to this day.

This was also the last time Ferrari competed in the top class at Le Mans, surely making it worthy of representation in the simracing world. Other brands like Matra, Porsche, Chevrolet and Lola showed themselves throughout the 1973 season.

Which of these four championships and eras would you like to see as the focus for GTR Revival?
About author
Angus Martin
Motorsport gets my blood pumping more than anything else. Be it physical or virtual, I'm down to bang doors.

Comments

Chaparrals, I want the Chaparrals.
There is the 1967 Endurance mod for rF2 that has a Chaparral D knock-off. With a bit of txt editing you can enable both the flipper wing and the hidden front wing (to keep the car balanced) The trouble is the whiney F1 fans wanted DRS limitations and S397 finally caved to their demands so the Fipper doesn't always work at every track. I use the clutch pedal for the wing activation, as long as I press the pedal the wing stays flat.(Chaparrals had sort-of semi-automatic gear boxes)
 
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Some of the first games that got me into sim racing were TOCA, STCC and Sport Car GT :) And of course I vote for BTTC 90 and World Sportscars (I wish there were GTs). Other historical series are interesting too, of course. ) And I would really like to hope that the game will be optimized for not the most powerful computers.
 
All four are pretty niche choises. All valid choises, but essentially very niche.

If they keep BTCC SuperTurers open to modding, there could be a lot of community skins/skinpacks to recreate certain seasons. I like the idea, i love those cars because they're fun to drive. GTR2 mod (first a conversion from Race07 AndreasFSC mod hosted here) was pretty popular and get tons of skins for each national championship. From a physis point of view, they could obtian a lot of more datas for SuperTurers and even drive them directly, meanwhile the insurace cost of a WSC, Can-Am or Trans-Am could be very expensive.
70s cars were pretty beasts to drive, licenes will be cheaper (or not since there are some icon cars), but they could be a great hit or a great miss. Unless you're old enough to remember GTL or rFactor/GTR2 HistorX mod, WSC70 mod and GPL Can-Am mod, they could be snobbed or considered too hard to drive.
The real question is: they could hit the same success that happened with GTL in 2005? Or times are not mature for a release for now?

Second point trackpack. If you need to achieve success in whatever they'll choose, have a complete trackpack will be essential as livery authenticity (will all the actual regulation to tobacco and alcool sponsors, wich are unpleasant for immersion for a purist like me. but rules are rules).
From a pure source material point of view, BTCC should be the easiest trackpack were you could found a lot of references. Some tracks haven't change much since 90s, meanwhile a lot of 70s tracks exist anymore (Riverside) and photographics references are more hard to find.
 
Premium
The best series in the history of motorsport was without any doubt the CanAm. I do understand it is not possible anymore today, because it was very dangerous. But compared to the 60's - 70's CanAm series today's cars are just boring. CanAm is not easy to drive but when you are used to it (in a sim at least) it is a very nice challenge to do. So it would be great if we have a new race sim dedicated to CanAm.
 
Premium
I'm 12 years old and what is this?
Like a lot of things when you're 12 years old, this is an opportunity for discovery. I was a huge fan of racing history when I was that age, and absorbed everything I could get my hands on. Now that I'm old enough to have seen a lot of that history in the making (e.g. I saw Ronnie Peterson take his last lap at Monza), I'm still as much of an addict as I ever was. It never gets old.

Check out racingsportscars.com.
 
Mod-edit: copied your french text into google translate and it returned this:

Go go with can-am and especially sportscars 72 73 74 75 and the magical sound of matra engines the 24 hours of le mans and the world championship certainly the finest hours of motorsport PORSCHE 911 carrera rsr FERRARI 312 bp more that would fill a empty you would be designated with models that no one has put on the track and that are not found in other simulations and the circuits daytona nurburgring targa florio I can't wait to see your choices the dream can come true
thank you for asking us for our opinion
 
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I prefer content from current categories to historical content, but in this case, the BTCC which is the least old lol

There are many current good categories that deserve a lot of attention.
 
All those classes work for me.
Historic Trans Am edges out everything else, tho.

Or, just NOT solely Can Am. Too fast and squirrely for close online racing
 
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BTCC and CanAm:
BTCC is iconic and those cars were absolutely beautifull, CanAm is pure madness, I want to drive those extreme cars that were fast with no constraints so that every car is different.
 
Premium
“It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.”

--Steve Jobs

This is so true

A better approach would probably be to make a minimal prototype with just one or two cars and tracks from each era, and show us how it will look and feel to play

Then see what we think

You'll get a tonne of input once people see something in front of their eyes

This is the key philosophy behind agile development
 
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“It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.”

--Steve Jobs
Indeed, that's quiet a strange way from straight4. I don't understand the point of this.

Firstly, we know now that this game won't be any GTR revival.

Secondly, I have doubts about consulting a small community about the choice of historical series of different categories although the same community has already approved the project of a GT game. This doesn't make sense. A GTR revival game has been teased, the community reacted positively and not it is asked whether it has to depict BTCC, transam, can am or WSC.

Obviously I voted for WSC, which is the closest category to a GTR game spirit, and Can An which are closer than the 2 remaining ones which have nothing to do with the name GTR. I'm not stating they are bad, they haven't a place there.

A Can Am game would be the equivalent of GP Legends imo, although mote manageable thanks to better physics and FFB. These cars will keep new comers away, not sure it is the best option as a one category game. I like these cars, these beasts, a lot, always fun to drive, and I would like to be able to race them in full grids (only way to do that currentlt is GPL), it would be a niche game.

WSC with mixed categories is the best option, the only in the GTR spirit, and including prototypes and GT cars. This is all that was expected for this game, I really don't understand this poll.

The right question should have been : "you're going to get a WSC game, which era do you want? 70's? 80's? 90's?"

My answer is the 80s and 90s eras, with the group C cars. That would be a real GTR game.

Anyway, reading the current results, if Straight4 takes a decision based to this poll, we will get a classic BTCC game, not a GTR revival at all. Well, I wasn't hyped and this is the first proof I was right.

I really hope it is just a false consultation to keep on the hype, or to create one (is there really a hype?) And that Straight4 team has already made its mind on what the game will offer.
 
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So hope this is VR friendly, i dont think Mr Bell has answered the question on whether its forward rendering or deferred, i believe this is key to a VR friendly title.
Exactly this. If it's deferred rendering with TAA then we can already forget about this title. Same as Rennsport.
 

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Angus Martin
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What's needed for simracing in 2024?

  • More games, period

  • Better graphics/visuals

  • Advanced physics and handling

  • More cars and tracks

  • AI improvements

  • AI engineering

  • Cross-platform play

  • New game Modes

  • Other, post your idea


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