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.

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

 

[St3fan]

Excited about the news. Been a Blancpain series fan for a while now.
Although I am not against a GT3 racing sim, I still wish to have maybe like just 1 or 2 entry level cars or slower spec racers (Spec Miata, BMW M235i Racing, Audi TT, 911 Cup) as training tools, and make the game just a little bit more diverse.

 

[Pauli Ahonen]

Yeah my PC is only 12 months old but I think I'll need an upgrade too! lol

New Nvidia series should hit the market before this title and Nvidia is claiming that cards will be sold at normal prices again. I am personally waiting for that instead of buying an gtx 1080 ti now for 1000 €. Current cards with current prices will turn into very bad deals, it's just a matter of time.
Aside from that the new AC sounds very promising considering that even the AC we have now is the go-to simulator of many and the new title promises to fix all the major flaws simracers have been complaining.
I personally would like to see pure race machines in addition to the gt3 cars.
Modability still remains a question mark, but what would be the reason to restrict it compeletely.

 

[Ricoow]

Key words there, TIP OF THE ICEBERG, so this version is based on Blancpain and Blancpain only, which is endurance and GT only. Opens the door to AC2 I agree, but if I read correctly this is a one series, stepping point for Kunos towards AC2?

They are calling it Competizione, not Blancpain Endurance, so they leave room for different series. Basically this is AC2 if you ask me with that statement.

 

[Shaun Clarke]

Modability still remains a question mark, but what would be the reason to restrict it compeletely.

Here Here

Shaun

 

[Celestiale]

Very thrilled to say the least. Especially the online licensing/matchmaking systems sounds really good.
I wonder if they can pull out something comparable to IRacing, fixed times every hour or two with all players who are participating being put into different splits depending on their rating. While i am not the biggest fan of GT3 cars, it's the perfect class for such a system.
Then they only have to get rid of the ping-pong collision physics and we'd have the perfect Sim

 

[Flibbberflops]

MXGP3 which uses same Unreal Engine 4 has following min specs :

• 
  MINIMUM:
  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    
  • OS: Windows 7 64-Bit or later
    
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K; AMD FX-6350 or equivalent
    
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 with 2 GB VRAM or more; AMD Radeon HD 7950 with 2 GB VRAM or more
    
  • DirectX: Version 11

http://store.steampowered.com/app/805550/Assetto_Corsa_Competizione/

The steam link already seems to indicate it won't work with win 7... typo?

 

[Shaun Clarke]

They are calling it Competizione, not Blancpain Endurance, so they leave room for different series. Basically this is AC2 if you ask me with that statement.

But, they have licenses for other Competition cars already in AC?

GT2
Audi TT
LMP

Why just aim for one and label the new "game" when most of the cars in ACC are already available in AC1 (ok remove the fact that different physics / gfx engine)

So why aim for 1 single series if this was going to be an ongoing "Competition" series?

 

[Crivitz Chris]

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

My assumption, based on that the initial release will be summer and based on one of the screen shots with a Strakka Mercedes, is that this will simulate the 2018 season. With that should bring the New Bentley, Lexus, and 2018 spec Nissan, and the ever popular Jaguar LOL!. Unless some other announcements happen, I don't think we'll see the NSX, McLaren 720s, or Callaway C7. A good chunk of your list is the "previous generation" GT3. I think only the brand with multiple cars will be the Bentley.

If they decide to expand the game beyond the Blancpain GT Series, I can see them adding IGTC first (addition of 3 tracks). I would love to see them add more SRO sanctioned/partnered series such as the Asian GT and Pirelli World Challenge. I'm hoping that they will add GT4 in the future as a couple of those IGTC races have both GT3 and GT4. But I don't see that happening for at least another year or two, which should be the time it should be getting out of early access.

That is just my speculation. As an admitted rF2 fanboy, this does have me excited. I'm very curious about it. I do hope that modding some what supported. As long as it allows custom skins, I'll be happy. I'm hoping it will allow custom tracks as I think the 10 tracks will get boring after a while. I do think the cars will be locked down, but am hopefully that more will be added.

 

[Ricoow]

But, they have licenses for other Competition cars already in AC?

GT2
Audi TT
LMP

Why just aim for one and label the new "game" when most of the cars in ACC are already available in AC1 (ok remove the fact that different physics / gfx engine)

So why aim for 1 single series if this was going to be an ongoing "Competition" series?

My 2 cents? They would need renewed licenses for the AC2 probably, and to give away all your 'treasure' at once is a terrible marketing decision. Probably Blancpain also got involved to make this a marketing for their series so don't expect new licenses to be announced until late this year, maybe next year.
And the new engine is a reason on its own.

 

[Turk]

New Nvidia series should hit the market before this title and Nvidia is claiming that cards will be sold at normal prices again.

I don't see how they can make a promise like that. The issue wasn't with the price Nvidia were charging, it's with the distributors who were selling direct to miners cutting out the retailers. Even if they put in some sort of restriction there's still nothing stopping miners buying up all the cards from the retailers.

 

[Hygge]

Very excited about this. As I more or less only race GT3 cars this suits me perfectly.

Hoping they will get the ai right as I don't think the ai in AC was very good. Apart from very good awareness of other cars they didn't race very well. If you stopped at the track the cars behind would just pile up behind you. And it was an endless fiddling with ai strength and ai aggressiveness to find the right combination where they would race you without flying off at the first corner.

Also hoping that this title will be modable as I want more tracks than the official Blancpain series tracks.(Can't imagine a game where I won't be able to run on my favourite track Imola)

And where does this leave GTR3? A remastered version of GTR2? And what about Raceroom? Will this be an end to our wishes of getting Ferraris and Lambourghinis to the game? I hope this is not the case, As much as I love this new game from Kunos I hope that GTR3 is still on track (no fun intended) and that Raceroom will continue to expand their GT universe.

But all in all I'm very excited about this and apart from the physics (which I'm sure will be great) it will be interesting to see if Kunos can take the next step to photorealistic graphics in simracing.

 

[melanieuk]

Has it been confirmed anywhere that the game will be exclusively about Blancpain? Because otherwise I'm thinking people are just jumping to conclusions. I don't know, but I guess they would have called it something like Blancpain GT Simulator or something if that were to be the case, rather than Assetto Corsa Competizione.

Automobilista is also the official Stock Car Brazil sim and yet that's not all there is to that title... just saying. Let's wait for more info before starting asking for Assetto Corsa 2 guys

I'm hyped either way!

I think the title speaks for itself?

View attachment 237027

From the Official BlancPain Motor Sports website.
https://www.blancpain-gt-series.com...to-sim-racing-with-assetto-corsa-competizione

I know I read this morning that VR support is in but now I can't find where it said that.

The Unreal Engine 4 supports VR it's standard, checkout loads of downloadable demo and videos on youtube, where for example real estate property developers, home sellers use the UE4 to model their homes/house where you are able to do a virtual Tour using VR headsets.

Realism, I bet they will claim to make it realistic but in fact far less ball-breakingly realistic (as rF2)

Wow an rFactor 2 fanboy sh!tting on a Assetto corsa announcement, no one is interested in rFactor 2, and lets be honest it does not have the best physics, checkout the RD have your say when over 85% of the reader thought that the physics in that game was the worst, no one is buying that lie any more that it has the best physics, its a long gone myth, there is a reason why games that use that game engine is the least most played racing games on steam.

 

[c172fccc]

That looks awesome! Can't wait to see some gameplay.

 

[Jacco van der Zaag]

??? what was at spa last year ? i think u are mistaking this with project cars 2 !

I was at the 24h of Spa last year. Loved it. So I don't know why you are bringing Pcars2 in here actually?

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Apologies if this was talked about already.

Searched around for Unreal Engine 4 racing games and it seems system requirements are not that heavy.


Monster Energy Supercross 2018 using unreal engine 4.

From youtube review that game has 24 bikes in single player and has night/rain/dirt/mud etc.

Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame Minimum System Requirements

    OS: Windows 7 64-bit
    CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-6350 4.0 GHz
    RAM: 4GB System Memory
    GPU RAM: 2GB Video Memory
    GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 2GB or AMD Radeon HD 7950 2GB
    DX: DirectX 11
    HDD: 15GB Available Hard Drive Space

Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame Recommended System Requirements

    OS: Windows 7 64-bit
    CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5 GHz or AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz
    RAM: 8 GB System Memory
    GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
    GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon R9 380 2GB
    DX: DirectX 11
    HDD: 15GB Available Hard Drive Space

 

[Matt Beers]

Console users not getting any love or what?!

 

[roby13]

There will also be the opportunity to compete in different moments of the iconic Total 24 Hours of Spa, with a dynamic weather system recreating the famously unpredictable climate at the Ardennes track.

Taken from the official Blancpain series page. Got No time to look it up. Has kunos elaborated on 24h cycle?

 

[kondor999]

> back to the days when racing simulation developers focused all their attention to detail on a specific racing series,

THIS. THIS IS WHAT WE WANT. NO MORE "SURVEY" SIMS.

 

[leseb64]

 

[Bobby Pennington]

After watching the trailer.......I'm done. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Thanks Paul