Assetto Corsa Competizione, The Official Blancpain GT Series Game Announced!

[Paul Jeffrey]

Top GT3 licence, UE4 graphics, day to night cycle, dynamic weather, advanced physics with a focus on realism.. is Assetto Corsa Competizione the sim we've all been waiting for?

When Kunos Simulazioni hinted at a big announcement a few days ago, many thought it would simply be a case of confirming another licence for the already well developed Assetto Corsa software, or at the very most a potential AC2 first announcement. Not so, the team over in Italy have been hard at work behind the scenes developing a very exciting new piece of software, and what is more the new Assetto Corsa Competizione title will focus on a single racing category, the incredible Blancpain Endurance GT3 series.. a welcome hark back to the days when racing simulation developers focussed all their attention to detail on a specific racing series, something that Kunos are keen to replication with this newly announced IP.

Set to feature a pretty significant shift away from the basis of the Assetto Corsa title we all know and love, Kunos have confirmed that AC Competizione will feature what are described as "photo realistic" graphics thanks to the use of the incredibly powerful Unreal Engine 4 graphics engine, allowing Kunos to move away from the single light source solution of Assetto Corsa and finally bring both time of day and weather effects to their racing game - a must when you consider the Spa 24 Hour is a key event in the real life Blancpain championship.

As well as the obvious visual benefits brought from a move to Unreal 4 (see screenshots attached to this article), another key talking point from the simulation announcement comes by way of confirmation that Kunos are looking to build a sizable offline career mode around the new game, with driving school tutorials making a welcome return to a popular modern day simulation.

Alongside what promises to be a substantial offline element, the initial press release indicates that Kunos are also aiming to make considerable changes to the way Assetto Corsa veterans experience online play, with an eye on the emerging eSport marketplace the Italian developers are promising a well rounded ranking and matchmaking online system, potentially encouraging a much more evenly balanced online experience and less of those famous public lobby first corner crashes...

Although only initially announced this afternoon, it looks like development is well on the way with this exceptionally exciting new title. Projected for a summer Steam EA release, I'll leave you with the new trailer to get the juices flowing for now...

Assetto Corsa Competizione should be available on Steam Early Access Summer 2018.

Check out the Assetto Corsa Sub Forum here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussions regarding the sim. We host quality League and Club Racing events, have a selection of fantastic mods to download and some of the best community conversation. Join in the discussion today.

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Excited? Looking forward to the new title? Let us know below!

 

[ShredatorFIN]

From Stefano on official forums:

"Physics was one of the very few things we could salvage and bring over from AC1 to ACC moving to UE4, everything else needs to be redone from scratch.

So from any point of view you can consider ACC physics as a direct evolution of AC1 physics with the added bonus of not having 170+ cars to update and check if we decide to make substantial changes.... this is giving me, Aris and the new physics dev that joined us Fernando the opportunity to get in pretty hard in some areas and make some substantial changes that we couldn't afford to do with a big released product like AC1.

We'll have plenty of time to dig into the details of it both before the EA and after, I'll just drop one big one here tho. Although it's not really something we'll see fully utilized in ACC because of the nature of the tracks we are going to include but the physics engine is now running full blown 64bit math all around, so, as far the physics is concerned, there are virtually no limits to how big a track could be, we could literally race to Mars and back without suffering much precision losses in the calculations... again, not really something that will create a huge change in ACC but still a thing I can geek out and be happy about "

About how programming is with UE4 compared to old engine:

"it a different mindset, we programmers had to spend more time figuring out how the engine wanted us to do things rather than write the actual code to make those things happen.
Day to day quality of life went a bit down for the programming team , the engine is HUGE, small modifications require very long compile times compared to AC1 that was built for fast iteration and was quite a joy to work with... that means A LOT of coffee breaks, lot of cursing a lot of opportunities to get distracted while the damn thing builds.. but, all the frustration pays back once you see what the graphics guys are able to put on the screen and realize it's all worth."

 

[Daggerman]

Whatever deal SimBin had, it could be that it has expired, or it could be that they are just taking their sweet time with it, who knows.

Great to see a title like this though, I just hope modding can be possible, both apps and cars / tracks.

 

[cpt_gandy]

For those worried about system specs with the Unreal 4 game engine here is a full list of games that use the Unreal 4 game engine, maybe you already play one of them.
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Category:Games

 

[Antonio Castagna]

For now it's an Italian-style ProjectCars, we'll see if it will really be a leap forward or a direct competitor of the latter, certain that wait 5 years to get a bit of darkness and a few drops of rain ... now only iRacing is missing to get some puddle of water and wet tires

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Imagining AC1 will get this new engine, is madness. Of course it won't. AC is done. Similarly as how Witcher 2 didn't get Witcher 3's engine.

Porting content won't happen just by dragging and dropping, as you can see Stefano said everything had to be done from scratch except the physics.

Nordschleife would be cool as would some other cars... but it's not in the Blancpain GT calendar so won't be in the game. They have to already laserscan and recreate from nothing Zolder, Hungaroring, Paul Ricard and Misano. In AC1 that would have taken more than 1 year.

Sprint races are included, so it's not just about Endurance races.

 

[Deleted member 241736]

So all this talk of specs...

I currently run an FX8350 with a GTX 1060 3gb. I can run AC with most settings at max (reflections and smoke at medium) and get a constant solid 60fps (I cap it at 60fps to avoid fluctuations).
I can not afford a new GPU in the current market, but plan to upgrade to a GTX 1070 when this whole bitcoin issue is sorted out.
So unless I can get a decent framerate with medium settings (and at least a 12 car grid) with my current set up then I'll hold off buying ACC until I can upgrade my GPU. This is no criticism of Kunos or the game itself (which looks awesome), but I simply cannot afford a new GPU at the current inflated prices and I don't want to make myself miserable with low fps and low settings when I don't really need to.
In the meantime, I shall continue to play AC, which still looks awesome IMO.

Aren't there Nvidia Flags and banners on Highland course? So every gameproducer has a graphicard company with, they (both) will force you to buy a new hyper GPU.

Good 2 c my most complain "bug" in AC was heard: Race-Series! Grid packages! and not the all alone standing racing-cars like the MC12 GT1 for hotlapping (what a shame) -> thx RSS for your GT1 mod.

"Minimum" and "recommend" PC specs will shock us, also we will have the old GT3 generation like Jaguar (Frey), Bentley, McLaren 650, Aston Martin Vantage. Maybe it feels like playing FIFA 2015

Put my thoughts in AC-Forum cause I'm banned for lifetime
cheers

 

[RMR1]

Give it to Studio 397, the world needs more ball breaker sims that makes men out of boys...because rF2 is in a desperate need of more car packs

Please go away...

 

[headder]

When I read 'Unreal engine', I instantly popped a question in my mind - minimum game specs for 60 fps?

Probably something around my spec, i7-6700K, RX470, 8GB DDR3. UE4 engine is well optimized

 

[throughalens83]

Assetto Corsa is finished as it is now and won’t be updated or upgraded anymore.

That's for sure. I just dream in something like AC2, in which we have the same features of AC but with UR4 engine.. I know, Kunos is a small company and they will focus on a single game, but this statement by Marco Massarutto let me with a bit of hope..

“This announcement represents a dream come true for us. The Blancpain GT Series license is just the tip of the iceberg."

 

[headder]

So does this mean we will get these..

• Aston Martin Vantage V12 GT3
• Audi R8 LMS
• Audi R8 LMS Ultra
• Bentley Continental GT3
• BMW M6 GT3
• BMW Z4 GT3
• Emil Frey Jaguar G3
• Ferrari 458 Italia GT3
• Ferrari 488 GT3
• Lamborghini Gallardo G3 Reiter
• Lamborghini Huracan GT3
• Lamborghini REX
• McLaren 650S GT3
• Mercedes-AMG GT3
• Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3
• Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3
• Porsche 911 GT3 R
• Porsche 997 GT3-R

You forgot about Lexus RCF GT3...

 

[Patrik Marek]

Imagining AC1 will get this new engine, is madness. Of course it won't. AC is done. Similarly as how Witcher 2 didn't get Witcher 3's engine.

Porting content won't happen just by dragging and dropping, as you can see Stefano said everything had to be done from scratch except the physics.

Nordschleife would be cool as would some other cars... but it's not in the Blancpain GT calendar so won't be in the game. They have to already laserscan and recreate from nothing Zolder, Hungaroring, Paul Ricard and Misano. In AC1 that would have taken more than 1 year.

Sprint races are included, so it's not just about Endurance races.

well from scratch, I'm sure they can salvage most meshes and some textures, of course things like their _MAP textures will be different in UE4, but base textures would still probably be very similar

yeah can't wait to see the early access

 

[Charles Amyouni]

Probably the first official racing game of an organization that I am actually hyped about cause it is helm by one of the best developers out there - Kudos to Kunos and hopefully this is just the start for their great journey towards real nexgen racing sim.

 

[Sigmar Bomar]

Biggest problem I could see with this UE4 is how it will work with triple monitor/VR setups where we need high FPS and latency with 40+ cars on track. E.g. feed 144 fps triples or next gen 4k VR.
Could result that fancy graphics can be achieved on single screen 60 FPS only and potato to average machine will need to downgrade graphics settings a lot. PC2 also has nice videos and screenshots but even on my pc I cannot run it full graphics settings on and keep 144 FPS.

 

[Helmut Skrdla]

I'm not even a GT3 fan (more of an open-wheel collector in AC) but damn, this is big. Seems to visually approach PC2 quality, with Kunos physics and a licensed car set... yes, awesome!

 

[Andy_J]

I haven't read it all, but does any one know if this is a DX12 game? I hope not. And I hope it will run on Win 7.

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

Heh, I remember back in the day where we were all wishing there would be porsches in racing games and everybody was wishing for a GTR2 sequel and now *everything has porsches* and *everybody is making GTR3*. Turns out if we all wish really hard for something it can actually happen!

So everybody wish for GT legends 2 now, please

 

[T_rac3]

I haven't read it all, but does any one know if this is a DX12 game? I hope not. And I hope it will run on Win 7.

 

[Tberg]

For now it's an Italian-style ProjectCars, we'll see if it will really be a leap forward or a direct competitor of the latter, certain that wait 5 years to get a bit of darkness and a few drops of rain ... now only iRacing is missing to get some puddle of water and wet tires

 

[DaVeX↯]

Hum since they have a deal with Blancpain they can release several DLC and expand the main game since they have a lot of options under the same flag...

 

[davewilliams000]

Pretty hyped for this - will be a day 1 purchase for me. Have just really got into my GT racing recently, spurred on by the likes of Daytona 24hrs and Bathurst 12hrs this year. Looks like it's going to be amazing.

Hopefully as others have said, hopefully this will be used as a base for AC2 as well.

View attachment 237092

Probably a bit controversial, but to those hoping it runs on windows 7, it's 2018... windows 7 came out in 2009 (!) and MS ended mainstream support for it over 3 years ago now in Jan 2015. If this is to be a competitor to PC2 in terms of graphics, and by the sounds of it surpass the already good physics of AC1, it is correct that it should use modern tech and not support an outdated OS. I get that people can't always afford to upgrade their systems and I was in that camp for quite some time (so I understand), but to me saying it should run on windows 7 is almost like saying they should make it for playstation 3 - at some point things need to move on (sorry!)