Sim Racing in the Skies: What is Celeros?

Celeros Game.jpg
A few weeks ago, a tournament was held with prominent racing personalities playing a game called Celeros, which featured flying drone-esque vehicles. So, what exactly is Celeros?

Image credit: Saltwater Games

On 17 August, F1 Esports and ESL R1 commentator George Morgan was casting for the Genesis Tournament. This was an event that featured the likes of GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough and former F1 driver Bruno Senna.

It was held on a game that is currently in the pre-Alpha stage, Celeros, which features futuristic flying vehicles.


Official Airspeeder Game​

Celeros is being developed by a studio called Saltwater Games. What may be hard to believe about this game is the fact that it is actually not some absurd concept that could never happen in real life like Trackmania or Hot Wheels Unleashed.

In fact, Celeros is the official game of a brand-new real-world racing championship: Airspeeder is an electric aeronautic car series being described as "Formula 1 of the skies".

Up until now, the series has run with the vehicles being controlled remotely. It is set to have its first crew-occupied event next year, with up to ten teams expected to participate for a full season in 2025.


The current vehicle being used is the Airspeeder Mk4. It has a take-off weight of 950 kilograms and produces 1,340 horsepower from its Thunderstrike Hydrogen Turbogenerator. It can cover a range of 188 miles, but most impressively, gets to its top speed of 225mph from a standstill in 30 seconds.

Airspeeder will compete on tracks mapped out in the sky via augmented reality. Nothing too far removed from a futuristic flight racing game, so it is no surprise that such a game exists.

Celeros Gameplay​

Observing the Genesis Tournament, the game is still very much in its early stages, but the actual gameplay functions look interesting, the physics for the Formula 1/Drone-inspired vehicles seemingly being rather accurate.

The map used for the event is called Aerobay, a 5.1km city-esque track featuring environmental obstacles that players would have to navigate around. There are also alternate routes, dramatic elevation changes and even winds to propel the players either along or out of line.


Of course, it is hard to believe the real-world championship would race in a built-up area. No health and safety expert would approve that, but it can be done in a game without the fear of anyone getting hurt.

The event itself was time based. Each competitor had three laps to get the best time they could. It does leave us wondering if there will be a close quarters racing mode with players being able to actually race against each other. Considering the game is in pre-Alpha, we will give them a pass.

Celeros looks very promising. It could very well appeal to the Trackmania community with its need for precise inputs and momentum to extract the speed.


How To Play​

If you are interested in Celeros, join their Discord server and you can engage with the developers. As the game furthers completion, they may open it up to public playtesting. You can also visit Celeros.gg to learn more about the game.

What do you think of Celeros? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
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About author
Luca Munro
Biggest sim racing esports fan in the world.

Comments

Looks like F-Zero is coming to RL bois

well I'd say this looks to be as gimmicky as Formula E but hey at least it looks kinda cool, I meant lots of ppl wanted flying cars to be a thing for so long and it might finally happen so why not?

Lets hope the execution ends up being as cool as the concept
 
Checked out the site and it appears to be mostly selling NFTs of fictional tracks. If that is the case the game is dead in the water before it even hit alpha.
 
Reminds me of one from years ago where they planned to use rocket powered jets to race I downloaded the game of that. This was it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Racing_League I'll do a video of the game one day on my YouTube channel.

The trouble with sky racing in an augmented reality track is that it's more fun to take part in than watch from the outside.

Unless they can find a way to display the augmented track from the outside, that makes sense to viewers.
 
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I've got a drone for photography. This has just reminded me I should get one of the FPV drones as it looks awesome.
 
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It is set to have its first crew-occupied event next year
Hmm, nope, the date is not 1st April... :cautious:
Unless they can find a way to display the augmented track from the outside, that makes sense to viewers.
That should be the easy bit I reckon. Think about how many sporting events already have overlays.
Making it safe and exciting? Hmm, that sounds properly hard.
 
Judging from the thumbnail this indeed looks like a hardcore sim
 
really...really worried about tire wear....how are the physics and tire wear modelled?
 
Finally a simulated version of my most beloved sport: space racing!! Last week the team from Mars did a great job finishing behind the guys from Spaceballs on the Venus Solarsystem Racingway. There's a rerun on AstroTube if you couldn't see it live :thumbsup: Looking forward to the game without a doubt.
 
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Reminds me of one from years ago where they planned to use rocket powered jets to race I downloaded the game of that. This was it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Racing_League I'll do a video of the game one day on my YouTube channel.

The trouble with sky racing in an augmented reality track is that it's more fun to take part in than watch from the outside.

Unless they can find a way to display the augmented track from the outside, that makes sense to viewers.
We've had AR in motorsports for decades now, I don't see that being an issue in the slightest tbh.

We've seen things like flag periods, drivers and positions and even their faces plastered across the circuit on TV feeds, little blips that point to cars on screen with their driver name above them which react dynamically to the camera, etc. We also see this stuff in use in hockey and football broadcasts with information being displayed on the field; and even getting obscured by the players. There are sports venues which no longer have any printed ads on the fields as they are replaced by digital ads in the broadcasts which change throughout the course of the match. Formula E (used to?) show an animated arrow system in the special lanes to trigger the extra HP boost on broadcasts.

The tech for this stuff has been around a long time. I recall seeing it used on restarts in the Indy 500 when I was at least in my early teens; some 20 years ago. Showing a floating gate on screen for an air racing series is child's play these days.
 
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Watched some vids and still can't figure out what the heck this is.

First, the headline made me think it was simply a video game "sim racing for the skies".

Then, the ad video made me think it was real life remote controlled planes/drones racing.

However, the video also showed real cars on tracks too. But the remote controlled planes were on track with the cars. So is it real cars VS real planes/drones? Are they just using cool cars to help showcase the sport of racing? Is it real RC planes/drones that somehow follow and control the real cars?

Then, the RD article says "the series has run with the vehicles being controlled remotely..."...OK, wait. So those real-life cars in the video are in fact actually being driven remote-controlled? Or are they talking about the real-life planes/drones? Or both?

Then, the RD article says "It is set to have its first crew-occupied event next year"...So next year it won't be remote-controlled anymore because there will be an actual crew occupying the vehicle? Well, the planes/drones are obviously way too small to fit a person so I guess that means next year will have real people in the real cars driving them instead of the real cars being driven remote-controlled? But if it's just drivers in real cars racing around a track then what does that have to do with skies/planes/drones? What?

Then I saw another video and it showed no real life planes/drones, no real life track, no real life cars, it simply showed a guy twiddling his thumbs with a gaming controller playing a 100% pure videogame. What the???!!!
 
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