PC2 Project CARS 2 - The Ford GT GTLM 2016

[Paul Jeffrey]

With many of the biggest and best manufacturers from around the world slated to appear in Project CARS 2, the developers have revealed images from the lesser spotted in sim racing 2016 Ford GT.

Dominating GT3 / GTE specification on the international scene, the stunning new Ford GT hasn't yet made it far and wide amongst the big name sim racing games in an official capacity, so the deal by Slightly Mad Studios to secure the car for the new Project CARS 2 game is something of a coup for the British game development studio.

Having made waves at the Le Mans 24 Hours last year due to its incredible outright pace and robust reliability, the latest generation GT40 won first time out at Le Mans last season in the hands of American former DTM driver and experienced GT racer Joey Hand.

The Project CARS 2 version of the car will be available in both GTLM and street specification, joining the original GT40 Mk.IV of 1969 fame and contemporary modern day rivals from Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin.


Project CARS 2 will be available in September for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

Check out our Project CARS 2 sub forum for a place to join together with fellow race fans and discuss the game prior to it's launch around September 2017. Once the game is publically available we will be hosting further sub forums with racing league and club events, downloadable setups, mods and more. Stay tuned for all the action here at RaceDepartment!



Happy to see an officially licenced Ford GT coming to a modern racing simulation? Looking forward to driving the latest and greatest from the Blue Oval? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Sonoafafayon]

Guys. I can understand your skepticism towards PCARS2, but how would they show anything other than graphics? You can't judge how it feels from videos and physics analyses either. The only way is to try it, eventually, just like any other sim. Ugliness does not make better physics either.

Anyways, if PCARS2 flops eventually, it certainly won't be caused by the content. I hope they deliver on all fronts and create healthy but tough competition between the devs... And the winners will be us, simracers

I 100% agree. It's rather annoying to see all the same people commenting how it will "fail" because of the physics, which they've not even tested themselves yet. People seem to act as though SMS haven't listened to one of the biggest complaints about the game, the physics, and that Project CARS 2 will be bad because of this. Of course the next game will have improved physics, it would be a ridiculous move by SMS not to.

I'm sure Project CARS 2 will be an outstanding game due to all the effort that SMS are putting into the game. Fingers crossed it is!

 

[Drecho 65]

I'm buying Project cars 2 when it comes out

 

[William Wester]

I'll buy pCARS 2, why not. Was pCARS 1 everything SMS or the sim racers wanted it to be, no, but I can still have a good time with 1 when I find a good combo. I don't look for one sim to be my everything sim, I don't actually think it's possible so I tend to buy all of them.

 

[Akra]

Ignoring physics discussions and how buggy or not buggy the game will be - I do have a little bit of an issue with the content. But it's the same issue I have with every other game.

What exactly are we meant to use the Ford GT for? Same could be said for any other racing car. Ford GT runs in WEC right? We're missing the Porsche from the GTE class, the entire LMP2 field, and apparently the entire LMP1 field this time too. For tracks we're missing Mexico, China and Bahrain. If we move to IMSA, we're missing the Porsche GTE again, a chunk of the GTD field, and the entire DPi field. From the tracks, we're missing Sebring, Road Atlanta, VIR, etc.

This isn't a problem exclusive to pCARs, but it's sad that we no longer have motorsport simulators, we have driving simulators. Just a random collection of cars and tracks, rather than a series, rather than a proper championship. The Ford GT looks great, it just feels a bit lost without a WEC or IMSA calendar to run on.

See if SMS turned around and made a full IMSA game, I'd buy that. And if they made a full WEC game, and a full Blancpain game, I'd buy those. I miss the days of motorsport games, rather than car collection games.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

Don't blame SMS, Kunos or the other devs for that... Blame IMSA and FIA. They are the ones who hold those rights but even then it still requires the individual licenses of the manufacturers and locations. So it's much more involved than just the series name licensing.

 

[Akra]

Don't blame SMS, Kunos or the other devs for that... Blame IMSA and FIA. They are the ones who hold those rights but even then it still requires the individual licenses of the manufacturers and locations. So it's much more involved than just the series name licensing.

I never blamed anyone, just cited it as an issue I see with the content. I'm not one who normally thinks older things are better, but I do miss the days of proper simulated series. Whether or not it's a developers fault or not is a totally different discussion, but I do feel that all of this wonderful content is not used to it's full potentially because of this issue.

However pCARs 1 made this issue even worse with poor design choices. Got the brand new LMP1 DLC? Awesome! Now go use it in career mode where you won't be allowed to race multi-class with it, and can only do 20 minute races. They took an already disappointing situation and made it even worse.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

I don't think a title with only one set of cars would work in today's market. i.e. if you had an official game of just WEC... That would appeal to a small market of sim racers. People are expecting more for their money so the sanctioning body would have to be ok with their license being used with street cars and other race cars which they don't have in their sanctioned racing body. I doubt they are ready to make that compromise today.

 

[Akra]

But we don't know that it wouldn't be popular. Ok maybe not ELMS, since it's not that popular anyway. But BTCC and WRC games were popular when they were being produced and we've had numerous Le Mans games over the years. If you marketed your game as a WEC game then it'd blow by people, but could you see a Le Mans game? I think so. Are we just assuming that they wouldn't be popular because we don't see games like that anymore? DiRT Rally was a surprising success for Codemasters, to the point where DiRT 4 is clearly based on DiRT Rally rather than DiRT 3. Are we sure there isn't a market for it? Codemasters appear to have found one.

Remember that iRacing has a Blancpain and IMSA licenses, and that barely resembles those series. I don't think at that level there is much fuss over it.

But of course I never said it should exclusively feature such content. There's no reason you cannot have additional content, in the form of cars and tracks. When it comes to road cars it doesn't matter as much, but when it comes to race cars, we're just picking a random assortment of stuff. Why does it have to be like that?

pCARS is pretty close to having most of the Blancpain grid. Why can it not be rounded off and given a proper place in the game? Even WEC. It has almost the entire GTE grid, they have licenses for the manufacturers in P1, and I doubt ORECA, Dallara, Riley and Ligier are going to be breaking the bank. So why not finish that off? I'm not suggesting they bin everything to make way for it, but it seems like a massively wasted opportunity.

This for me summed up pCARS on the Xbox One. A massively wasted opportunity, with some odd design decisions. Combined with an absolutely buggy mess that they never fixed, and it ruined what was the best racing game base for about a decade. The physics were great, sound was incredible, career mode was the best thing since Gran Turismo 2, and the immersion in the night and rain was just mind blowing. But a lot of the content was wasted and completely out of place, due to lack of full grids and some poor design choices.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

But we don't know that it wouldn't be popular.

Most devs are looking for sales in the millions, not the tens of thousands. Codemaster's F1 series is mainly the only single discipline game to really reach those numbers (I don't count Dirt Rally since it has both rally and rallycross which are two different disciplines). Let's face it, F1 is a lot more visible around the world than any sports car series. Just about everyone I know (who doesn't following racing) knows what F1 is but they have no idea about WEC, Blancpain, IMSA, etc..

It's the titles like Forza and Grand Turismo which are selling in the millions. Titles with huge varieties of vehicles. Unfortunately, people who are looking to replicate sports car racing are in the minority.

At some point, FIA, IMSA and the other sanctioning bodies will see eSports as way to bring more revenue/drivers to their organizations. When that happens, they'll look to find the more popular carriers of eSports and look to get their name out there.

Given iRacing is a USA based company with mostly North American based tracks, it makes sense that IMSA would allow them to use their organization name. Eventually, they will realize that iRacing's small footprint is not going to be the best business approach (in the grand scheme of things).

 

[Akra]

So is pCARS aspiring to just be another Forze and Gran Turismo? And there's no reason they can't fill the easy gaps in their car line up?

If that's how we see pCARS then I guess it isn't what I thought it was, or was going to be. I'm wanting a racing simulator, from a sim racing developer. Not another car collection and 'drive random things' game. I don't see what the big deal is of trying to fill in the gaps to cater for both quite easily. Remember I never said that pCARS should not have a collection of random cars - just advocated the filling in of the gaps.

I do count DiRT Rally, since it was brilliantly old school in it's approach to simulating motorsport, rather than simulating a random collection of cars. TOCA Toruing Cars reached #3 in the UK Game Charts. That wasn't just popular with racing fans, that was just popular full stop.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

So is pCARS aspiring to just be another Forze and Gran Turismo? And there's no reason they can't fill the easy gaps in their car line up?

If that's how we see pCARS then I guess it isn't what I thought it was, or was going to be. I'm wanting a racing simulator, from a sim racing developer. Not another car collection and 'drive random things' game. I don't see what the big deal is of trying to fill in the gaps to cater for both quite easily. Remember I never said that pCARS should not have a collection of random cars - just advocated the filling in of the gaps.

Just another Forza? No, but those titles are competition (and there is no car collecting in Project CARS as they are all unlocked... i.e. no grinding). I don't know SMS's company mission, but I do remember the question being posed of why no have Forza/GT style content but with a realistic approach and race cars, and be able to cater to sim junkies and casual drivers at the same time? i.e. there shouldn't need to be separate hardcore and non-hardcore versions of title.

In that regard, yes I do believe Project CARS will always combine road cars with race cars. I don't ever see the Project CARS series only focusing on race cars solely. That's not to say SMS doesn't do another sim title which is focused on a specific discipline in the future (like GTR2) but I highly doubt that will be within the Project CARS series. The title doesn't restrict to only one type of "car".

However, Project CARS offers enough content on both sides so those that don't like the other side never need to bother.

As far as "filling in the gaps", it's not always that easy (whether financially or contractual). If you think there are gaps because SMS or other developers don't car, then I think you are not giving them the benefit of the doubt. Most of them would love to have every desired car and track, but it's not always possible for various reason (two main ones typically being time and money).

I do count DiRT Rally, since it was brilliantly old school in it's approach to simulating motorsport, rather than simulating a random collection of cars.

You misunderstood. Dirt Rally does more than one discipline in which my comment was focused around simulating a single discipline. The skills it takes to be a rally driver are not the same as it takes to be a rallycross driver (and vice versa). Even then, Dirt sold well for what it was but it still didn't eclipse titles which include multiple vehicle types.

However, Codemasters just went back to basics with the title (i.e. going back to what make the Colin McCrae series well received). They did add rallycross which was a smart move, IMO, and they dumbed things down a bit but still kept it challenging. It's not an easy thing to do to combine rally with street racing (and do it well) so I don't ever see those being combined any time soon.

Even people in WMD commenting on the rallycross offering in PC2 have asked SMS about full rally. They said that to do it right, it would require it's own IP. With that, rally is not really a great example for this discussion.

 

[duece9s]

gte car needs more exhaust burbling -_-

 

[Rob]

I adore this car, both the street and the race version.
It baffles the mind that it hasn't been in another Sim so far, despite AC and R3E having the Ford license.
Just a shame, the buying rules for one..well and the price obviously would so much love to own one of them in the future. Best looking "mad-priced" car, alongside the Lamborghini Asterion

I told everyone last year that you can't count out Chip. And he proved me right. lol. I don't particularly like the guy (not a drivers' owner) but you gotta respect him. I guess we can chalk it up to the bias, but after Haas and this beautiful beautiful Ford, that should be gone.

I can't wait to drive this thing. It's no GT3 for sure. In fact, Ford took advantage of the new and powerful class (GTLM) to step in and dominate. Don't forget about the Corvette GTLM. That thing is as stunning, but apparently not as well developed. I'd never count Chevy out though, since they have more on track experience than almost any (any?) other engine manufacturer. That's in the game too, no?

We need a "salivating" emoji.lol.

From the tracks, we're missing Sebring, Road Atlanta, VIR, etc.

These dolts need to get off their Island more often. If they want to compete with Forza, they should not fu*k over North America, track-wise.

 

[AbeWoz]

yeah, corvette is in the game.
full car list here: http://www.projectcarsgame.com/the-cars.html?lang=en

GTE/GLTM and GT3 are separate classes this time (as they are IRL)
The Aston and Vette in the game however are 2015 spec so they aero regulations are different. I'm sure SMS has done some balancing however.