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.
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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

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Comments

M
Bram Hengeveld said:
Shooting from the hip here as I don't know the team size of both companies but I can imagine an American based company like iRacing have alot more folks employed than a compact development team like Reiza who's members work mostly remote or from Brazil. Again, no facts here, just taking a guess.
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It could be, but running costs should go in the subscription not in the content. Plus the scale effect of the huge number of iracing users should help spreading the cost of the license which is almost half of the cost of a car/track. I think the real difference here is the amount of profit iracing wants to make. How greedy they are given that they do not have a real competitor
 
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Austin Ogonoski
tr1v1um said:
And then we have a very trustable person in this threat writing walls of texts and forming opinions about other people based on their CV, a person who worked for a sim company that managed to create underdeveloped products with issues that a Brazilian developer is trying to fix right now. Get off your high horses guys and relax. It's just a game and I think it'll end up as any other racing game once a few patches are applied. Maybe just search for F1 2021 glitches on YT and you will realize that this Nascar game isn't any different to what the gaming industry is producing since years, while quite a few people are willed to spend their money despite knowing it better.
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Some serious cope here.

This is an officially licensed racing game in which the series' basic rules haven't been implemented. Stage racing does not exist in NASCAR 21 Ignition. This would be like if Madden shipped an NFL football game without four quarters, or Codemasters shipped an F1 game without DRS.

This omission alone warrants serious questions about the competence of this company.
 
R
Many here judge the experience of some key developers, stating that mobile games developers aren't able to develop a racing game of an abroad series. Well, developer's job is to understand what the final product must be, other people give them the required information to code. So any good developper is able to make a good racing title if he's given the right information. So I wouldn't judge any people involved on that project just reading their resume.

The other point, european people being not able to make a racing game for a US series. Seriously ? What is that so special any 10 years old player from anywhere in the world can understand that full grown developer can't understand?

There are too many reasons for that game being in that state. Just don't make assumptions from nowhere.

What is probable is that it's coming out in a rush. The same has been done with nascar heat. An awful game until the 3rd or 4th one. Ignition will be ready in 2 or 3 years.
 
Austin Ogonoski
roadyroad said:
The other point, european people being not able to make a racing game for a US series. Seriously ? What is that so special any 10 years old player from anywhere in the world can understand that full grown developer can't understand?
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There is a huge advantage in growing up following a sport and being able to reference it's subtle nuances at any given moment during the course of development.

If not, you get something like NASCAR 21 which has serious authenticity problems.

Take for example, the cut track penalties. Currently NASCAR 21 penalizes you for driving on the apron at all tracks - not just Super Speedways where this is a legitimate rule, but ALL tracks.

Someone who grew up watching the sport each weekend would know that cutting the apron at some tracks (such as Phoenix) is allowed and never make this mistake in the first place. So now you have a track in the game that penalizes you for driving it correctly, and now you have to eat up time fixing a bug that a team familiar with the subject matter would have avoided in the first place because they're just like "it's Phoenix."

The entire development of NASCAR 21 was likely plagued by authenticity issues like this judging by what streamers have run into - each time a small mechanic or feature was implemented, it now basically has to be assessed and re-done because it's not accurate.

cropped-nascar-cup-series-at-ism-raceway-phoenix.jpg
 
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Kyuubeey
roadyroad said:
Many here judge the experience of some key developers, stating that mobile games developers aren't able to develop a racing game of an abroad series. Well, developer's job is to understand what the final product must be, other people give them the required information to code. So any good developper is able to make a good racing title if he's given the right information. So I wouldn't judge any people involved on that project just reading their resume.

The other point, european people being not able to make a racing game for a US series. Seriously ? What is that so special any 10 years old player from anywhere in the world can understand that full grown developer can't understand?

There are too many reasons for that game being in that state. Just don't make assumptions from nowhere.

What is probable is that it's coming out in a rush. The same has been done with nascar heat. An awful game until the 3rd or 4th one. Ignition will be ready in 2 or 3 years.
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Well, like I wrote earlier, simulations are very difficult to make. It's not like a common "game" where the minimum is a good aptitude for design and some basic skills. You need to have a high level of understanding in mathematics, physics, engineering and computer science and also specialized knowledge about your particular simulation subject.

Just because you can simulate planes doesn't mean you have the faculties to simulate helicopters, or boats or cars to a high level. There is some serious studying to do even if you are very good already at some simulations and the aforementioned subjects.

Now imagine how difficult it is for game devs who probably are not experts in mathematics, physics and engineering, with probably no simulation experience, to make a compelling simulator. It'll be quite an amazing feat if someone can learn to do that in the typical game's dev cycle of a few years.

The reason the region matters is because typically you will need information from people involved with the actual machines and technical/social contexts of the event they are being used in, and obviously if you are going to do any telemetry correlation with drivers, you need both the telemetry and the drivers (and tracks!).
 
JocelynTurmel
Austin Ogonoski said:
There is a huge advantage in growing up following a sport and being able to reference it's subtle nuances at any given moment during the course of development.
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To add to this: I've only watched one full NASCAR race in the last 10 years and I knew this was wrong, and that's their official promo.
oops.jpg


They're clueless on so many things, and it's not like putting the cars in the right place takes more time. From what I've seen, this game is going to be disastrous, but I'm very optimistic for next year's release. There are so many big problems and little details to fix, but they have a lot to work with, so let's not lose hope for this new platform.
 
Austin Ogonoski
lmao this is getting so weird, I absolutely love it.

Motorsport Games is basically the game dev wing of a giant "Motorsport"-branded network.
www.motorsportnetwork.com

Motorsportnetwork | MotorsportNetwork.com

www.motorsportnetwork.com www.motorsportnetwork.com

This February they went as far as creating their own sim news blog that is basically a rip-off of RaceDepartment - Traxion.gg. Within a week of the site going live they were on the side of a NASCAR Cup car for the February 28th Homestead race. Very obvious this is not an indie operation and it's listed on the above site as part of the "Motorsport" wing.

So you have a publicly traded company creating it's own news outlet out of thin air to cover both it's own products, and it's competitors. Is the goal to get MarketWatch to cite their own reviews of their own games to lure in more investors and prove that the company is successful?

Are they even allowed to do this? What the **** is happening here?

I have been on the receiving end of legal threats for running my own personal blog in my spare time, simply because of the optics of simultaneously being under contract with a developer.

This is like 100x more egregious.
 
M
Sorry for you guys who were anticipating this game, but damn those were some funny videos. I saw one where the pit-crew looked like they were going insane and were trying to kill the pilot by beating him to death wit the hammer..
This is probably not the site to admit this, but I am going to buy this day 1 just to have some laughs
 
B
This game looks like it will be a giant cluster**** and cause of simracing drama since we haven't seen for a while! It makes usual current sims look like technical miracles.
It's a bit weird to see S397 associated with this game, because these are competent people.
 
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mantasisg
b)b said:
It's a bit weird to see S397 associated with this game, because these are competent people.
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I have similar thoughts, However rF2 is for the most part baby of ISI. One interesting bit is that one of original rF devs, who, by the way is largely responsible for vehicle dynamics, tires, AI, has just moved to iRacing - you won't find interesting and IMPORTANT news like that on racedepartment: https://racesimcentral.net/an-interview-with-terence-groening-master-of-physics/

IMO S397 is just not on the track it should be on. And I am not sure anymore about their competence, I am kind of confused about that, they did improve some stuff, they did break some stuff too, and did nothing for some stuff as well. Merging with Motorsport Games seemed like new hope, but I guess it is just worse now.

I am very sad about rF2 because it would be an ideal sim if it was developed properly and actively. In has fundamentally brilliant physics that is not far from being perfect, I believe it could potentially have great graphics too. And it is moddable. Unfortunately it seems not to be meant to be, it would probably be too good to be true.

So we settle now with "CoNSuMer MarKEt SiMRAcing", which means simcade or even arcade that has some simulation fundamentals underneath, but really does little of simulation at the end. And this is actually S**T which people are asking for, and paying most. It is sad.
 
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Shovas
Premium
Seems like there are already a lot of gameplay videos on youtube. Just search for the game title.

We should have a pretty good idea of what the game is like at this point.

For example,


lol massive bug at 6:45 oh well...
 
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Shovas
Premium
Shovas said:
Seems like there are already a lot of gameplay videos on youtube. Just search for the game title.

We should have a pretty good idea of what the game is like at this point.

For example,


lol massive bug at 6:45 oh well...
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Looks like all the previews are noting a tonne of bugs.

They had better delay the launch to fix those bugs if they're not fixed yet.

As someone else said, could be a disaster.

It's not worth it Motorsport Games just swallow your pride and fix the issues.
 
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Shovas
Premium
One thing I'm noting is that Unreal Engine still looks great but incredibly blurry by default
 
R
Kyuubeey said:
Well, like I wrote earlier, simulations are very difficult to make. It's not like a common "game" where the minimum is a good aptitude for design and some basic skills. You need to have a high level of understanding in mathematics, physics, engineering and computer science and also specialized knowledge about your particular simulation subject.

Just because you can simulate planes doesn't mean you have the faculties to simulate helicopters, or boats or cars to a high level. There is some serious studying to do even if you are very good already at some simulations and the aforementioned subjects.

Now imagine how difficult it is for game devs who probably are not experts in mathematics, physics and engineering, with probably no simulation experience, to make a compelling simulator. It'll be quite an amazing feat if someone can learn to do that in the typical game's dev cycle of a few years.

The reason the region matters is because typically you will need information from people involved with the actual machines and technical/social contexts of the event they are being used in, and obviously if you are going to do any telemetry correlation with drivers, you need both the telemetry and the drivers (and tracks!).
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I have stated. Developers' job is not being expzrts in marhematics and physics, it is someone else's job.

I professionaly work with developpers. I provide the mathematic models, they are not able to do that, not their job. Their job is to code the calculations in their systems and make the models available for any user of their system without knowing what calculations are done. Their competence is to translate and make every complex stuff unseen.

Their job is also to ask the right people how to do the thing right. The same applies here. The point is not the developper's knowledge of the nascar racing stuff (which, again, is not complex in rules, which is the main issue stated in this topic), it is the people who provides the necessaey information.

What I just say is that it's a nonsense to give the developpers all the credit for the game's issues, stating thzy don't know nascar racing. The real issue is the companies which sold the licence without providing specialists, or the licensee which didn't provide it. Depends on the agreement.

If they provided the right people, then we can assume the developpers did a bad job. Then the question would be whether they had enough time to do the job. As always, who's wrong? Of they had accepted the job knowing it As impssible to deliver, they are responsible of this mess.

But I'm sure that both motorsport games and these developpers knew it was impossible, making false promises. Motorsport games is guilty. They just have found people who needed to work and said yes to an impossible job. Do not search anywhere else, tjat's the simpe story of the gaming industry.
 
JocelynTurmel
Shovas said:
One thing I'm noting is that Unreal Engine still looks great but incredibly blurry by default
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No MSAA in Unreal 4, and it probably has motion blur and other post-processing noise that you can't turn off completely, like most games these days.
 
Austin Ogonoski
Shovas said:
Looks like all the previews are noting a tonne of bugs.

They had better delay the launch to fix those bugs if they're not fixed yet.

As someone else said, could be a disaster.

It's not worth it Motorsport Games just swallow your pride and fix the issues.
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It's very unfortunate the content creators given review copies are not adequately conveying the severity of the situation, and continuing to attempt damage control for a company they're not affiliated with which is just strange and bizarre.

It would be very easy to film a three minute video and say the following:
  • This game is not ready for release.
  • Here is a list of basic features that are missing
  • Here is a list of weird crashes and bugs I've run into.
  • I cannot film a basic ten minute gameplay video without running into show-stopping bugs.
  • I do not recommend you buy this, and if you pre-ordered I recommend you cancel
  • This is very uncomfortable for me as I was asked to show the game in a positive light, and it's just not possible
Instead they still pretend to play it and act like it just needs "a bit of feedback and improvement", even though all their videos quickly descend into just screwing around in the game and splitting hairs to point out minor, insignificant positives while the game falls apart around them.

They also awkwardly try to state they've given the developer "feedback" about "what needs to be fixed", failing to realize that all game developers big and small make use of bug tracking software as part of basic project management. The developers I can assure you are aware they shipped a broken game and have a detailed database of every bug and omission a streamer has run into, logged months before streamers got their hands on it.

The whole situation is frankly embarrassing.
 

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