NASCAR’s newest game pretties up with Unreal Engine 4
Stock car racing now has an Unreal 4 engine, which is being used with NASCAR 21 Ignition. This gameplay trailer by Motorsport Games was released at Gamescom 2021. The Unity engine is clearly superior to the predecessor, the NASCAR Heat series. This first glimpse of the cars shows how detailed and well-presented the Unity engine is.
NASCAR 21: Ignition is a from-the-ground-up effort, Motorsport Games chief executive Dmitry Kozko told Polygon earlier this month. Motorsport.com’s subsidiary, Motorsport.com Publishing, acquired the NASCAR franchise in 2013. The game features Unreal 4 and Studio 397’s proprietary Physics package for the rFactor2 racing simulation on PC.
NASCAR fans also want visual fidelity. Motorsport Games notes that all three Cup Series Fords, Chevys and Toyotas will be racing with different aerodynamics packages, including superspeedways and short tracks. This sounds like something I have never seen before, despite being late to the party.
Motorsport Games also is giving attention to vehicle setup, acknowledging that a lot of that data is super-secret proprietary stuff that drivers won’t let you look at, even if they’re investors in your studio (as Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski are). NASCAR 21: Ignition will pay close attention to a critical component of video game race-planning and strategy, but Motorsport Games promises it will still be one-button easy for those who don’t need that kind of fidelity.
NASCAR 21 – Ignitionlaunches October 28th for Windows PC and Xbox One. Later, upgraded versions for PlayStation 5 (and Xbox Series X) will be available for those who have purchased the previous console’s version.
Although this license has not been well-received by consumers or publishers at AAA-level, Motorsport Games appears serious about making it work. We will find out more about the game when it launches. This is especially true considering the complexity and depth of the career modes and other features that won’t be revealed until then. But it already looks to be more polished and rendered than the Heat series, which never looked like much but did have strong racing gameplay.
