GTR Revival: Straight4 Studios Needs Your Help

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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

i hate this kind of comment tbh, why do you have to dismiss my personal preference? what is it to you what i wish for? just because you are satisfied with the current offering of modern gt racing does not mean i have to be. It's ok to want a new game to add its own flavor to the thing even though its the same content wise compared to other sims. It's like saying that having just 2-3 car manufacturers out there is enough because, you see, another one would just make the same thing, four wheels and a few seats. Or its like saying: why is mercedes making a new E-class, we already have one. Well, if its 'better' and up to current tech standards then they make a new E-class. Same with racing sims, you can make 'the same' content but if its visually better, better sound, better physics and ffb, all around a better tech package then it justifies making 'the same' content, just newer, better.
i wish people would stop telling others what they should want.
dismissal? I merely posted an opinion, which this thread has eight pages of so far.

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I've recently fallen in love with the 90's BTCC era, so that would be my preference. My second choice would definitely be the 1973 World Sportscar series.
 
Don't take opinions personally and grow a pair :coffee:

I have to agree, I am sick of duplicates up to here, like it's a easy way out.

A sim with unique content would be fantastic.

But then what happens, it gets ripped and pasted into AC.

So if anything it is the majority opinion along with rippers that force it down your throats !

Gee wake up.
 
dismissal? I merely posted an opinion, which this thread has eight pages of so far.
no, i posted an opinion, about that poll.
you posted a judgement of my opinion in a way that devaluates it rather than just stating that you simply see it in a different way. there is a difference between saying "mh, tbh i would rather see new stuff instead of new versions of what we already have in other sims." - I can assure you i would have not had any problem with this.
but you wrote in a condescending way, thats what i did not like and that resulted in my post.
 
I went for Trans Am and WSC 1973, but tbh I have 0 clue how they'd be able to do a comprehensive sim about it, there's such a wide variety of cars they'd need if they wanted to go all in, and just focusing on the big entries would kinda be misrepresentative of that era.
 
The 2nd year when sportscar racing all went to ****, according to older Porsche enthusiasts. It only recovered to it's 1971 peak from 1988 - Kids in your rose tinted Ray Bans, sorry to bust your childhood but let's get over the fact Group 5 later on was a failed experiment too

My prediction is that like PC2 and AMS2, it will be a half-assed job to keep you rose-tinted clowns happy
Indeed Porsche lost its crown because of regulation changes, opening racing to a modern (of that time) era dropping the powerful rigid (and dangerous) cars to funnier cars and tracks. Porsche not being successful doesn't mean the sport was bad.

In fact what you state doesn't make any sense, you basically wrote that Porsche fans (not your own opinion) state it was a bad era because Porsche wasn't a good contender lol.

I suggest you to try cars of these years in your favorite sim and make your opinion by yourself about which style you prefer. I did it, read about these years to understand what had changes, and made mine.:D
 
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The 2nd year when sportscar racing all went to ****, according to older Porsche enthusiasts. It only recovered to it's 1971 peak from 1988 - Kids in your rose tinted Ray Bans, sorry to bust your childhood but let's get over the fact Group 5 later on was a failed experiment too

My prediction is that like PC2 and AMS2, it will be a half-assed job to keep you rose-tinted clowns happy
Bollocks. If anybody sees anything with rose tinted glasses, are the Porsche fans for the 917 era. Sure, it was nice for them, but the old group 5 "GT" basically bankrupted ferrari, and turned the WCM into a two horse race between Porsche and Ferrari. The only thing that happened post 71 was replacing Porsche with Matra, and having a much more balanced and close championship.

Both regulations were wrong, the first asking for homologation "road cars", and the second for using 3 liter engines, a move that the FIA would repeat in 1991 to stab group C.

1973 was at least still a classic year, the last with Ferrari as a works team until this year, and some amazing cars:

 
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Four niche products that do not seem to be commercially viable, at least not with the mainstream racing community. I’d love to see A historic (1) BTCC or (2) Trans Am sim, but I am skeptical about the chances of this game being released. Hope to be proven wrong, especially if they manage to create a full roster of cars and tracks.
 
Having been around historic Can Am cars my vote would be for that series, start to finish. Maybe a career mode. Granted the series went from McLaren domination to Porsche domination but having an accurate simulation of the cars would be amazing. Being at the track when a line of the cars takes off at the start- Can Am historics, is incredible. The power to weight and the sounds from the cars are amazing, and it was a short period of racing history that will never be duplicated. One could hope the company could make a paid dlc for this series later so us Can-Am junkies could get our fix, driving and M8F or M20 at Road America, Sonoma (attached) etc. There was tremendous variety of less known cars interesting too in Can-Am. The absolutely amazing Chaparral cars are an example, of course. BTCC is great but we seem to have nice stuff covering that in rf2 and AC now. I would also love to see the European Touring Car Championship from the 1970s as a DLC or main game theme, such great cars as Capri etc.. And yes a detailed and accurate sim Trans Am would be fantastic, there are lots of vintage TA cars around still, -some- very faithful to the period as far as power, that could be used for sounds and physics and graphics etc. My 2 cents. :)
:):)
 

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Can-Am without a doubt. My cousin and I have had a great time over the years making up and playing out our own, Mainly '73 season. Also have '72 and some other Can-am greats.

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Currently have a 32 car grid for '73 some only competed at certain events but its cool to have them in. All physics and driver files are edited to be as realistic as possible.
 
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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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