NASCAR 21: Ignition Releases in 10 Days to High Expectations from Fans

NASCAR 21 Ignition Coming Soon 01.jpg
With just over one week to go until NASCAR 21: Ignition is released, there is optimism in the NASCAR community based on what Motorsport Games has revealed so far about the upcoming title.

A few months ago, when it seemed like Motorsport Games had a major announcement every few days, one of the biggest pieces on news surrounding the game developer and publisher was the reveal of NASCAR 21: Ignition. The concept of a racing title using the Unreal 4 engine for visuals and rFactor’s physics engine for the driving experience seems like a sim racer’s dream come true.

The title focuses on the NASCAR Cup Series, and Motorsport Games has been deliberate in distancing themselves from the NASCAR Heat game series. The Heat series had developed a reputation for underwhelming fans of NASCAR, and the hope is that Ignition represents a rebirth of the official title of one of the most popular auto racing series in the world.


Reception of the subsequent game teasers and trailers on the official Motorsport Games YouTube channel has been overwhelmingly positive, with each receiving 95% or more likes. The team has also given the public a few peaks behind the curtain as far as the development of the cars and tracks, and an introduction to some of the members of the development team.

NASCAR 21: Ignition was even playable for NASCAR event attendees recently. Motorsport Games brought the game to select races in recent months for fans to try. While some cell phone footage shot at the live demos has popped up on YouTube, it’s difficult to say whether the title will live up to its potential. Questions have been raised about the level of customization possible in Ignition, and some footage seems to hint at flaws in the AI. But, with the full game not yet shown and many post-release updates surely still to come, there is optimism in the community that NASCAR 21: Ignition will be the game fans have been waiting for.

NASCAR 21 Ignition Coming Soon 02.jpg


NASCAR 21: Ignition is scheduled for release on the 28th of October on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Be sure to check back with RaceDepartment for a full review shortly after release. Let us know what your expectations are for this title in the comments below.
  • Like
  • Angry
Reactions: FrenzKTM, Redsco, Knut Mattheisen and 5 others
About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

More in Other Games

Comments

MJQT
Austin Ogonoski said:
Some serious astroturfing going on in the comments of those YouTube glitch videos. Tons of accounts with no avatar and no channel activity trying to convince others this is only "beta footage" and everything will be fixed with a day one patch.

The game releases in a week.

During my time with SMS, at no point did we send a release candidate build to streamers that was this egregiously broken. We did not send "beta builds" that were "months old" either. Builds are only shown off to the public & sent to streamers when the game is 99.7% complete. The gaming industry is extremely calculated and nothing is left to chance or "oops we sent a buggy build from three months ago haha."

They also claim the whole point of streamers being given early access is to "find bugs", which is just not true. It is a lie told by developers to run damage control on an unsuspecting public when things like this happen. AAA projects like this have both internal and external QA teams working on them from day one of development. Any bugs or design issues streamers could find, have most likely been found internally several months in advance. You might think you're "helping" by reporting bugs on a community discord channel or streaming the game pre-release to "hunt bugs", but in reality they were probably already found by the QA team during development and this just allows them to prioritize what customers are frequently running into.

But even a good team will already do "mock runs" of a game and prioritize things ahead of time so you could argue none of this is needed. Save for placating the public and pretending like they're helping.

My own semi-professional opinion, is that what's happening right now at Motorsport Games is... chaos.

It's likely they knew six months out, that this game just wouldn't come together. Inexperienced dev who was still rapidly expanding as early as this spring (I should know; I applied there as QA lol). But due to sunk cost they had no way to back out or shelve the game. This is why a lot of teams will build a project first and then announce the game very late in development when it's clear it'll be a quality product.

We can get into really crazy territory quite quickly. We've had enough bad games released in such a short period of time that a precedent has been set for them to be pulled from online stores. If the same fate happens to NASCAR 21, investors start jumping ship, might even be a lawsuit or two from NASCAR themselves. Ad campaigns bought and paid for months in advance have to be scrapped. Company folds because they're constantly bleeding money.
Click to expand...
For the sake of optimism and having a new NASCAR game to enjoy, I wish I could find fault in what you're saying. But I can't. I do hope Motorsport doesn't have to fold, and can somehow pull a No Man's Sky out of the hat... but, that almost certainly ain't happening lolol. Thanks for being around, as you often are, to refreshingly call bullshit on bullshit @Austin Ogonoski.
 
JocelynTurmel
I bought a ton of rF2 content and mods that I can't use because they busted the AI, so I sincerely wish them ill, but I still would like the game to be good. Visuals, sound, dashcam, all nice. Everything else, yikes.

If Heat had this view, I would play it.

facepalm.jpg
 
P
WARNING:

DO NOT pre -order or purchase this game until you have viewed the numerous 'reviews' or early release videos on YouTube!....you have been warned

The game is complete disaster and it is clear it needs to be removed from sale immediately until further progress is made.

We are talking serious implications here for Motorsport Games as a whole; their first big title into their game releases and they have created something very VERY poor!. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if this is somehow a port of the named Switch title that is planned.

The game is riddled with issues and bugs; not to mention the complete lack of options and overall gameplay features...

Please let me stress...
This is NOT a personal or vindictive attack on the part of Motorsport Games; I really would love to see their games succeed but, from what i and others have experienced so far, it isn't looking good from the beginning!.

Please people...PLEASE, do your research before you consider purchasing this title...you will be glad i told you so ;).

All the best!

P.S. Additionally, for those hitting on rFactor2 and complaining about the physics in Nascar 21 Ignition (because of RF2 physics)...let me say

There is no way the physics have been implemented correctly into this new Nascar game...not even close!.
I have played with RF2 and it's predecessor and can see that it is far from RF2 as possible.

RF2's AI has for the most part been praised since it's creation for it's good AI, so Studio397 are not to blame here....
 
Last edited:
Austin Ogonoski
roadyroad said:
How can a company dare to show a product in that state as a prelaunch teasing campaign? The idea is to kill the product? Someone's hiding the true last build of the game to make the shares value decrease to buy them?
Click to expand...
Contractual obligations. From what I understand, it's in their agreement with Race Team Alliance to put out a yearly title beginning in 2022.

The chronology of this disaster I believe to go something like this:

1. Investors were misled and told that sim racing eSports were the next big thing in gaming
2. Investors pooled a bunch of money to start a dedicated racing game studio.
3. The purpose of this, is so they have complete control over both the eSports tournaments, and the game itself.
4. Investors were misled again and told rF2 was a suitable modular platform in which to build their NASCAR/Indy/BTCC/WEC games
5. It's hard finding sim racing veterans to join an upstart company because they've already been snatched up by various dev teams, so the staff consists of free agents and those without much experience working on racing games.
6. Via aggressive posturing on social media, a contract is signed with Race Team Alliance to create yearly NASCAR games beginning in 2021.
7. Work begins on what we now know as NASCAR 21: Ignition.
8. It's discovered, quite early in development, that rF2 is actually not a suitable platform for a mass market racing sim and they were misled about it's state - a niche, unfinished sandbox.
9. Suddenly the scope of the project is much bigger than anticipated. The team must code in elements that don't exist in the engine (Stage Racing), and fix things Studio 397 left in a state of disarray (AI).
10. ...and the team is locked in a contract with a hard deadline that never accounted for scope spiralling.
11. With a tight schedule and inexperienced team members, this task is virtually impossible, Motorsport Games scramble to cut everything and anything that isn't an essential feature.
12. The inexperienced team members rush through coding as many basic elements of NASCAR games as they can, such as pit stop animations and skipping to a restart after a caution flag.
13. This results in spaghetti code that creates constant crashes and other hilarious glitches.
14. The two years fly by as the team is in constant panic, having bit off way more than they can chew.
15. Release is around the corner and the game is in a state of complete disarray. The decision is made to just hide the game from the public to avoid them from seeing too much, resulting in a handful of small trailers that don't show anything of value over a period of several months.. These trailers take several days to re-shoot as the game constantly falls apart on the team and it's a miracle they're able to get a few laps in at Texas before all hell breaks loose.
16. NASCAR or somebody else in the contract demands streamers to be given the game early because "it's what's hip and cool with the kids."
17. Motorsport Games have no choice but to start handing out keys to a game they know is borderline unplayable.
 
JocelynTurmel
Austin Ogonoski said:
13. This results in spaghetti code that creates constant crashes and other hilarious glitches.
Click to expand...
You watch a few laps of any video and this is exactly what you see, it's like Nigerians starting a snowplowing company and their tools are falling apart as they try to remove snow from a Zellers parking lot in the middle of a snow storm. Bro, you're not getting paid for this.
 
P
Austin Ogonoski said:
Contractual obligations. From what I understand, it's in their agreement with Race Team Alliance to put out a yearly title beginning in 2022.

The chronology of this disaster I believe to go something like this:

1. Investors were misled and told that sim racing eSports were the next big thing in gaming
2. Investors pooled a bunch of money to start a dedicated racing game studio.
3. The purpose of this, is so they have complete control over both the eSports tournaments, and the game itself.
4. Investors were misled again and told rF2 was a suitable modular platform in which to build their NASCAR/Indy/BTCC/WEC games
5. It's hard finding sim racing veterans to join an upstart company because they've already been snatched up by various dev teams, so the staff consists of free agents and those without much experience working on racing games.
6. Via aggressive posturing on social media, a contract is signed with Race Team Alliance to create yearly NASCAR games beginning in 2021.
7. Work begins on what we now know as NASCAR 21: Ignition.
8. It's discovered, quite early in development, that rF2 is actually not a suitable platform for a mass market racing sim and they were misled about it's state - a niche, unfinished sandbox.
9. Suddenly the scope of the project is much bigger than anticipated. The team must code in elements that don't exist in the engine (Stage Racing), and fix things Studio 397 left in a state of disarray (AI).
10. ...and the team is locked in a contract with a hard deadline that never accounted for scope spiralling.
11. With a tight schedule and inexperienced team members, this task is virtually impossible, Motorsport Games scramble to cut everything and anything that isn't an essential feature.
12. The inexperienced team members rush through coding as many basic elements of NASCAR games as they can, such as pit stop animations and skipping to a restart after a caution flag.
13. This results in spaghetti code that creates constant crashes and other hilarious glitches.
14. The two years fly by as the team is in constant panic, having bit off way more than they can chew.
15. Release is around the corner and the game is in a state of complete disarray. The decision is made to just hide the game from the public to avoid them from seeing too much, resulting in a handful of small trailers that don't show anything of value over a period of several months.. These trailers take several days to re-shoot as the game constantly falls apart on the team and it's a miracle they're able to get a few laps in at Texas before all hell breaks loose.
16. NASCAR or somebody else in the contract demands streamers to be given the game early because "it's what's hip and cool with the kids."
17. Motorsport Games have no choice but to start handing out keys to a game they know is borderline unplayable.
Click to expand...
Absolute bingo!

Right on the mark with this!....and for Motorsports Games, if they don't make a decision to remove the game from sale in the next day or so, i feel the inevitable will come for them much much sooner!.

Nothing would've made me more happy than to see this title succeed and be the Nascar game we've been waiting for since (in reality) 2003.

In fact, i was hoping that it would be such a success that people would begin to migrate from the overpriced iRacing platform and cause iRacing to at the very least remove their monthly/yearly subscription fees...

That's the only thing making me not subscribe; it isn't because i can't afford it, far from it, it's on principle.

Mortorsport Games are in trouble...they need to act fast because quite frankly, they can't just sweep this under the rug!
 
gecco
So, visuals are good, with nice looking and detailed tracks, I hear...and the engine is from rf2, you say?
Interesting...:cool:
 
Redsco
The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4 using rFactor 2's physics engine.
 
Last edited:
Redsco
gecco said:
So, visuals are good, with nice looking and detailed tracks, I hear...and the engine is from rf2, you say?
Interesting...:cool:
Click to expand...
The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4 using rFactor 2's physics engine.
 
Austin Ogonoski
Been curious to see who Motorsport Games actually consists of and found a link to the SignalHire page in which just 44 employees are listed.

Fairly small team - not Kunos small, but it's important to look into these people's backgrounds because A) they're a brand new team so nobody actually knows who they are, and B) it paints a very weird picture of the operation.

Half of the employees reside in Moscow, Russia. So similar to Eutechnyx, a tangible portion of the staff don't even reside on the same continent that NASCAR competes on and it's very likely they've never followed or even seen a NASCAR race beginning to end before taking on this project.

Senior Game Designer, so basically the dude who dictates gameplay flow, what mechanics & features are in the game, what gets the axe due to scope, the flow of these mechanics + features, progression, etc, is Artyom Shilnenkov. Prior to Motorsport Games, Art spent a little over three years at Game Insight. They make mobile games such as Airport City; the polar opposite of a NASCAR simulator.


Also listed as Game Designer is Elliott Henderson. LinkedIn says the guy has a degree in graphic design and HVAC, with past work experience consisting of being a sales associate at Lowe's (hardware store) and several 2D vector art jobs. In fact he actually seems quite accomplished and has done a bunch of wraps for NASCAR Cup teams.

Going from 2D livery artist to making key decisions about the direction of the entire project is... not something you'd typically see for someone who doesn't have any sort of background in project management or game design.

Based on the employee roster and Henderson's abrupt career change, it seems like the operation is headed up in Europe and then the team scrambled to find a few Americans who could steer them in the proper direction (Tim Wheatley makes a guest appearance as the licensing guy!). Elliott probably did the best he could and worked his ass off to point the Ruskies in the right direction as the resident young American who really "got" NASCAR, but at the end of the day he is working with foreigners and mobile game developers attempting to create a simulator for a sport they've never seen.

 
Last edited:
EthanDean57
Shelve it, fix it, then release with the Next-Gen and the 2022 roster/schedule in time for the 500. We're literally in the round of eight right now.

The only thing giving me a crumb of hope for the next title (if there is one) is the sort of turnaround Codemasters pulled with F1 2016 after the notoriously scuffed 2015 offering, but as Austin sleuthed out, these guys are no Codemasters.

I am sad.
 
F_B
Premium
Nice looking graphics seems to be all that matters regarding this title. For some people that is enough to buy a title "Yeah, it looks great, it has to be great!".
 
JocelynTurmel
Austin Ogonoski said:
Half of the employees reside in Moscow, Russia. So similar to Eutechnyx, a tangible portion of the staff don't even reside on the same continent that
Click to expand...
Not excusing anybody here, but NASCAR would only need to skim a few things here and there and they could fund a proper pretend product to support their real events. "Offshoring" gone wrong once again.
At least F1 and iRacing are made by people who have a chance to get it right.
MLB The Show is made in California, not Japan.

High hopes for the three Indycar packages, the streets, road and oval experiences should be awesome.
 
numbersevenhull
@Austin Ogonoski

Some of your posts are welcome and informative, however I do not feel it right to single out solo members of this production team based on their CV. If they make public comments about their game by all means hold them to account, but I can not see how it is either right nor proper to point the finger toward individuals based on limited knowledge and working assumptions (such as foreigners may not speak better English than yourself).

I think you should delete your last post, it's inappropriate and potentially libellous
 
P
Duke55 said:
What are you trying to say, PAWANH. The game is no good?
Click to expand...
Well...this is a difficult question to answer to be honest...

I haven't said the game is 'no good' at all, but with the plethora of issues, bugs and lack-lustre approach to this title, it doesn't fill one with hope :(

I was really looking forward to this, i really was; and, don't misunderstand, i do want this game/developer to succeed but, what baffles me is why they made the decision to release it in such a bad state?

For the positives...
1. It has nice graphics (Unreal engine)
2. It has nice sounds (apart from the spotter which requires work)
3. UI not too bad either; basic but functional nonetheless

...BUT...unfortunately that's where the positives end for me.

It's all very well having a nice looking game with lovely graphics and sound but, the key element is lacking severely which makes a 'game'...and that simple thing is gameplay...
If the gameplay isn't there then what's the point of even calling it a game?

I am still holding out that major improvements are being made and will at least provide a good base game to work from, and more importantly, provide the consumer with a product fit for purpose (which at this moment in time isn't).

I hope that answers your question ;)
 
Kyuubeey
numbersevenhull said:
@Austin Ogonoski

Some of your posts are welcome and informative, however I do not feel it right to single out solo members of this production team based on their CV. If they make public comments about their game by all means hold them to account, but I can not see how it is either right nor proper to point the finger toward individuals based on limited knowledge and working assumptions (such as foreigners may not speak better English than yourself).

I think you should delete your last post, it's inappropriate and potentially libellous
Click to expand...
Austin's modus operandi is to start **** about things he doesn't know about and doesn't have any direct contact with; just let him be. :p

He does raise a fair point though; can mobile game designers really produce a compelling racing sim about a series they'll have a hard time to get direct contact with? It's hard enough for the veterans who have a decade or more in sim dev and close contact to personnel on the ground.

To be honest the bar for consumer simulations is fairly low compared to models used for training, so yeah, I do think they would be able to produce a compelling product if they do their research.

Would it be actually accurate? Of course not, they would need to do some real work with teams and drivers for that.

Will teams and drivers be willing to work with a simulation engineer who has no experience (I am just assuming a worst case scenario, I don't know who is doing their models) and no capabilities to produce an accurate model? I'm not too sure.
 

Latest News

Article information

Author
Mike Smith
Article read time
2 min read
Views
25,864
Comments
192
Last update

Share this article

What would make you race in our Club events

  • Special events

    Votes: 14 23.0%

  • More leagues

    Votes: 13 21.3%

  • Prizes

    Votes: 11 18.0%

  • Trophies

    Votes: 7 11.5%

  • Forum trophies

    Votes: 5 8.2%

  • Livestreams

    Votes: 11 18.0%

  • Easier access

    Votes: 38 62.3%

  • Other? post your reason

    Votes: 8 13.1%
See comments…
Back
Top