The NASCAR console game from iRacing is going to be developed in Unreal Engine with Monster Games (MGI) leading the way.
In an exclusive interview with Insider Gaming, iRacing president Tony Gardner spoke about the early stages of the NASCAR console game as well as some things players can expect with it all being in-house.
“The Monster Game group, they’ve built a lot of NASCAR games,” Gardner said. “They’re taking the lead on it. But you know, we’ve we’ve, you know, we’ve beefed up that group, significantly.”
Since acquiring MGI in 2022, iRacing has boosted the team from 20 employees to 35. On top of the staff increase specifically, iRacing has loaned engineers to the studio for its work, increasing the manpower available for development. It’s also providing tech used within iRacing itself for the games being developed by the Monster team, or what iRacing is now referring to as the “console studio” as opposed to Monster Games alone.
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“They’re using our car models, our track models, a lot of our tech, [and] they’ve done a lot of integration on the back end,” Gardner said of the work MGI is doing. “So, when we update a track – we’re bringing all of our NASCAR tracks up to, the latest spec, get them all current — and they have developed a system where they can just import our tracks and things like that.”
As far as the engine being used for the development of the new NASCAR console game, no longer will the games be built in Unity, as was the case under Motorsport Games. Instead, the team is using the aforementioned Unreal Engine for the game. It’s something that will bring NASCAR to the next generation that Gardner and the team at iRacing feel was necessary moving forward.
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In addition to an updated engine, there’s a heavy focus on the driving and features offered within the game. While Gardner couldn’t go into too much due to how early in development the game still is, he did say they have a focus on what they want to achieve with the first game.
“We want a real focus on the driving, as iRacing as a brand,” Gardner said. “So there’s going to be a lot of focus on good driving; Career mode is really important with a console game.
“And so there’s, obviously, a lot of effort in that. I don’t want to give away too much about the game. You know, we’ve got news coming, but, you know, the way the game works is with some fun new stuff in it, that I can’t talk about quite yet.”
The NASCAR console game from iRacing is currently scheduled for release in 2025. The license for the game was acquired back in October from Motorsport Games.
The information in this story comes from Insider Gaming’s interview with iRacing president Tony Gardner, if you use any of the information used in this story, please credit Insider Gaming and link back to this story.
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