ICYMI: Laserscanned Nordschleife Coming to rF2...

[Paul Jeffrey]

At the 2018 Sim Racing Expo Studio 397 had plenty of big news to share, not least of which was the announcement of a laserscanned Nordschleife coming to rFactor 2...

Now I know this is pretty late in being written up, I blame too much beer and too good company for that, but I think it is probably big enough and exciting enough to deserve an article all of its own - even if it is several days after the actual event.

Clearly very pleased with their latest licence agreement, Marcel Offermans and Christopher Elliot of Studio 397 used the recent Sim Racing Expo in Germany as an opportunity to announce to the world the recent acquisition of a licence to recreate the spectacular Nordschleife in rFactor 2.

Nordschleife is often one of the most favoured and requested race tracks in sim racing circles, with many of the current breed of sim games already featuring the epic circuit, however what makes the move to bring the circuit to rF2 a little bit more special is that Offermans and co have secured brand new laser scanned data, giving the studio the opportunity to recreate the circuit as it is in 2018, including several updates to the track that are not present in other recreations of the venue elsewhere in sim racing.

This is good, and marks a significant step for Studio 397 as they continue to look to bring yet more interesting official content to the simulation.

As well as the big hitting news of Nordschleife coming to rF2, the Dutch developers have also announced and subsequently released three new historic McLaren Formula One cars, of which you can read about HERE, plus they have previewed some rather impressive shader improvements that are coming to the title very soon - Studio 397 making yet more progress with an increasingly improving graphical power of the simulation.

You can check out some of the shader preview images below:

Sim Racing Expo 2018 was a big weekend for Studio 397, and it looks like things can only keep on improving from here...

rFactor 2 is available exclusively for PC from Steam now.

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Happy with the rF2 announcements last weekend? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!​

 

[mopro]

I always wonder how they are getting the funds for all of these licenses, i dont think their sales are enough to afford all the licenses and then wages and other misc things.

Probably like any other race sim devs, by doing commercial side projects.

 

[SunBro]

As long as they don't make it more than 20 euros, i'm down.

Also, hell yes we're getting rid of the blue tint!

 

[Rodent]

Nords is perhaps no longer a track that I get that excited over when a sim announces it but it's surely a welcome addition, looking forward to seeing how S397 version is.

Shader preview looks nice but why no interior shots? Surely I can't be the only one who spends extremely little of my racing time in external cameras chasing screenshots? Not to belittle those that do, but I want to see how the game will look while driving especially since it's at this area rF2 actually could do with some more graphical polish.

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[Case_]

Shader preview looks nice but why no interior shots? Surely I can't be the only one who spends extremely little of my racing time in external cameras chasing screenshots?

Work in progress. They don't have more at the moment (in a presentable state anyway), according to what they said.

Apart from the McLaren cars and competition announcement, pretty much everything they've announced/showed at Sim Expo was more of a "coming sometimes in (hopefully) not too distant future" type of thing, not something that's days or even weeks from release.

 

[MarcG]

I'm going against the grain here but Nords does not interested me in the slightest, it never has and I've never seen the attraction too it. However I fully understand the cult following, it has "something" about it that people just love and I'll be interested in time to see if I can find that "something" as well with this S397 release.
As for the Nurburbgring GP track it's *IMO* a boring track, I've been running it in ACC and it just does not excite me at all, but that could be partly down to the flat screen usage which is dreadful these days...so much so that I've put ACC to rest until Octobers VR update.

Anyway it's certainly a shrewd move by S397, it's a highly sought after bit of tarmac and will garner extra interest from those who are on the fence with RF2.

 

[Oldzeb]

if it has the same quality as sebring then it will be the best Nord all together!

 

[Wedge]

Those new PBR shaders looks very very good!

Official Nords track for rF2 is good for multiplayer Endurance events. But also racing against the AI could be the closest to an iRacing experience we gonna get.

 

[houssen]

My opinion is that Studio 397 is doing an incredible job, since it took charge of the simulator have only brought improvements and worked hard for us customers to be increasingly happy, a great simulator is not getting in a short time scanned tracks has a lot of work and competition system well worked improvements to graphical level etc etc ...
we must assess what it was and is now rf2 .
2019 is going to tarer us many joys ...

 

[henkjansmits]

For me this track is not the priority for rfactor2. I think the priority should be tracks for easy-access online racing (spa, road america, Imola,... not nords) together with the matchmaking and ranking system or integration with SRS. The fact that hop-in online is completely dead is the big issue for me.

 

[123rem]

Would love the track, but $10.55 for Sebring means I will have to think about buying this one.
Shame, because I am loving rfactor 2 at the moment, it has surpassed AC for me now, which I didn't think was possible.

Second thoughts, I might buy Sebring and see if it was worth it first.

 

[kozik]

The problem with this track is that once you enter it is difficult to get out, it doesn't matter the car.
I hope to have a lot of fun with him in RD.

 

[thepharcyde]

Would love the track, but $10.55 for Sebring means I will have to think about buying this one.
Shame, because I am loving rfactor 2 at the moment, it has surpassed AC for me now, which I didn't think was possible.

Second thoughts, I might buy Sebring and see if it was worth it first.

Sebring is very very good

 

[Mircea Rad]

Would love the track, but $10.55 for Sebring means I will have to think about buying this one.
Shame, because I am loving rfactor 2 at the moment, it has surpassed AC for me now, which I didn't think was possible.

Second thoughts, I might buy Sebring and see if it was worth it first.

Sebring + GTE pack were the best 25 EUR spent by me in sim-racing after GTR2

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[tr1v1um]

Would love the track, but $10.55 for Sebring means I will have to think about buying this one.
Shame, because I am loving rfactor 2 at the moment, it has surpassed AC for me now, which I didn't think was possible.

Second thoughts, I might buy Sebring and see if it was worth it first.

As others have allready mentioned, Sebring is def. worth the money. I too think that it is rather expensive, but the quality is outstanding in pretty much every way and at the end of the day you 'own' it. Even if you don't have the Endurcance pack or the GT3 pack, it is a nice fit in the sim. That track with time acceleration will immserse you in pretty much every way.

 

[Ken Verhagen]

thank you guys, I enjoy this sim

 

[kamackeris]

Sebring takes an age to load, imagine how long the Green Hell will take to load! It will be worth it though ..sebring is stunning!!

 

[DriveClubMaster]

Its exactly what we need, more proper race tracks made by the studio. Nothing against user made tracks but lots of them are neglecting single player with no so good optimized AI. Wish we could get most tracks from F1 current and past and they dont have to do it for free, im willing to pay for good quality laser track pack DLC.