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!

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

AC + UE4 + VR = End of the world !!
I just want to live a little bit after to enjoy it...

Yeah, how do we tell that to our wives!

 

[MrBismarck]

An endurance series with "sizable offline career mode" means you'll be able to save the game in the middle of races, right?

 

[The Iron Wolf]

matching rf2 cockpits would be downgrade

I did not mean car interiors, rather, I meant richness and quality of the internal game data exposed to 3rd party tools. Right now, AC does not expose some things well (damage, tire info). But mostly, it is simply missing features like flags and safety car phase. Really hope that will change, as I liked how AC handles and the performance (FPS).

 

[St3fan]

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

If I'm not mistaken, Robo Recall is strangely missing from this list, which is a game I believe every Oculus Rift owner has in their library - it runs pretty well on my E3+970.

On the topic of Win7 compatibility, I just found out that on Oculus support page, the minimum requirement for OS is Windows 8.1 or newer, but the recommended requirements for OS is Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer: https://support.oculus.com/1773584749575567/

I think the minimum requirement nowadays is just a guidance thing - except for unsupported OS. I have heard people who can play AC on a potato computer way below the required minimum system spec.

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

Interview to Marco
https://www.spreaker.com/user/motorsportrepublic/lintervista-a-marco-massarutto-per-parla

 

[Helmut Skrdla]

An endurance series with "sizable offline career mode" means you'll be able to save the game in the middle of races, right?

I too wrote that in the official forums. Would be grand to have savegames for long races, and maybe even AI Teammates you could speed up...

A good savegame solution might even allow offline/PBEM hotseat gaming with a friend. Where you hand the car over during a pitstop by mailing the save file.

 

[MrBismarck]

I too wrote that in the official forums. Would be grand to have savegames for long races, and maybe even AI Teammates you could speed up...

A good savegame solution might even allow offline/PBEM hotseat gaming with a friend. Where you hand the car over during a pitstop by mailing the save file.

I've run 24 hours races a few times in the older SimBin games and rFactor2 by racing for an hour or so at a time and it's a lot of fun, so I'm hoping the feature will be in ACBP, (or whatever the abbreviation is for this new game).

rFactor2 does allow you to send savegames on to other people. It's not in the UI or anything, but because you're resuming from replay you can just send the replay file on to the next driver.

 

[BhZ]

Interview to Marco
https://www.spreaker.com/user/motorsportrepublic/lintervista-a-marco-massarutto-per-parla

Driver swaps confirmed!

 

[sebduloiret]

really nice trailer ^^

 

[jpalesi]

For those complaining that it's not AC2, just a single championship game.
Wasn't Ferrari Virtual Academy a sort of preview of what came later, Assetto Corsa ? (ie, tip of the iceberg)

 

[Patrik Marek]

btw ac looked better then say rfactor2, and fps were comparable, I wouldn't stress about new engine, yeah it will be more demanding, but not radically

pcars 2 gives me about same fps as assetto

 

[Torcano]

Some new news from Stefano -

"I am so happy to write this finally.
Kevin, that you know well for his great Minorating system is part of the Kunos Simulazioni team at work on ACC.
I've always been a fan of what he's done with Minorating and, after meeting him in person I knew he had what it takes to be in KS... so ya, he joined us at the beginning of the year and hopefully will be with us for a long long long time.

And now that you know what to expect from ACC online ... back to work!"

*Online Rating Intensifes*

 

[Dan Costa]

Gonna get it of course, but the Nvidia logos worry me.

 

[Kakusso]

Blancpain has driver swaps, I wonder if that will be implemented. The Unreal engine has a great HDR implementation, the title promesses the best physics + the best graphics. Nothing could be better. Only negative, the fact that it is not open to other cars. Kunos, (it is no longer called that way), please together with the Blancpain tracks, add a bonus track; Mount Panorama - Bathurst many GT3 cars race there.
It would be nice if they also made WEC series in another title.

 

[Glaurung]

Interview to Marco
https://www.spreaker.com/user/motorsportrepublic/lintervista-a-marco-massarutto-per-parla

Very interesting interview.
Marco Massarutto and Stefano Casillo are the Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of simracing.
Nice times to come

 

[Guillaume Francois]

Some new news from Stefano -

"I am so happy to write this finally.
Kevin, that you know well for his great Minorating system is part of the Kunos Simulazioni team at work on ACC.
I've always been a fan of what he's done with Minorating and, after meeting him in person I knew he had what it takes to be in KS... so ya, he joined us at the beginning of the year and hopefully will be with us for a long long long time.

And now that you know what to expect from ACC online ... back to work!"

*Online Rating Instensifes*

So once I will instabuy ACC i'll get my current grade A ? lmao

Btw i don't get why people are complaining about GT3's, i think the title is more about Esport, a proper "racing" game, with the rules and so on.
It could have been a game about racing Fiat Pandas around the world it would have been the same for me. I'm personnally more interested about the Esport side and ranking system than which cars we will use. And i'm sure Kunos will think about something clever to add other series.

Question: Someone know something about the sound ?

 

[Turk]

Blancpain has driver swaps, I wonder if that will be implemented. The Unreal engine has a great HDR implementation, the title promesses the best physics + the best graphics. Nothing could be better. Only negative, the fact that it is not open to other cars. Kunos, (it is no longer called that way), please together with the Blancpain tracks, add a bonus track; Mount Panorama - Bathurst many GT3 cars race there.
It would be nice if they also made WEC series in another title.

Driver swaps are happening in the trailer so I'd guess yes. I think it will be restricted to official GT cars. There may be some extra non GT cars as an early career but I don't expect much outside of what's officially in Blancpain. Which makes sense, if they start putting in non related content it's going to mess up what could be a very immersive experience.

 

[Andy_J]

I agree.

 

[DKGORACE]

Well so much for not buying anymore racing stuff......... " Honey, I bought you some flowers and taking you out to dinner"............." You bought more racing **** didn't you, What's wrong with the 5 you already have?!?!"..........."So, that's a no on dinner?"

 

[DKGORACE]

Driver swaps are happening in the trailer so I'd guess yes. I think it will be restricted to official GT cars. There may be some extra non GT cars as an early career but I don't expect much outside of what's officially in Blancpain. Which makes sense, if they start putting in non related content it's going to mess up what could be a very immersive experience.

Oh That's a great thought. I would get it just for that. What a new perspective to team sim racing!!