With Assetto Corsa EVO set to become available to the public soon — although only in early access form — Kunos Simulazioni has offered further insights into what to expect from the title in short-, medium-, and long-term.
In the latest update, KS co-founder Marco Massarutto sat down for a chat with the Gran Turismo World Series’ German language commentator Michel Wolk for the Overtake YouTube channel about what’s in the works for ACE.
There was rather a lot to get through in this 90-minute session, so we’ve summarized it below and bundled it into everything we already knew about the game for a one-stop guide to Assetto Corsa EVO.
Table of Contents
- Assetto Corsa EVO Launch Date
- Assetto Corsa EVO Platforms
- Assetto Corsa EVO Cars
- Assetto Corsa EVO Tracks
- Assetto Corsa EVO Eifel Open-World Map
- Assetto Corsa EVO Career Mode
- Assetto Corsa EVO Multiplayer
- Assetto Corsa EVO Mods
Assetto Corsa EVO Launch Date
Currently ACE is set to enter early access on Steam — for PC only — in January 2025, and is targeting autumn 2025 for a full launch version with 8-9 months in early access. Console versions are not yet on the calendar, but we wouldn’t expect the title to arrive before 2026.
Pricing for early access hasn’t been set but is promised to be “aggressive, in a good way”. There’s no subscription model, and players who have already bought the early access version won’t need to buy the expansions as they become available in early access — although pricing for those who haven’t got on-board yet will increase as the early access version expands.
Assetto Corsa EVO Platforms
At present only the PC version of the title is confirmed, but there’s been numerous references to console versions of the title from Kunos Simulazioni and its parent company’s parent company Digital Bros.
We’d fully expect that to be ninth-generation consoles only — PlayStation 5 and 5 Pro, and Xbox Series S and X — at launch, but by the time it does arrive (as above) we’re likely going to be learning about the tenth-generation consoles…
While VR support is part and parcel of the PC version, there’s no confirmation yet on whether the console version will support VR devices such as the PlayStation VR2.
Assetto Corsa EVO Cars
We don’t yet have a confirmed car list for even the early access period of ACE, but we’ve seen several vehicles of different types across the trailers so far. Our users have been assembling a list on the forums, and that’s just shy of 50 vehicles at present.
KS has stated that the initial early access build will feature at least 20 cars, and while we could probably take a guess based on what’s been prominently presented in the trailers there’s only two that have been outright confirmed: the Alfa Romeo Guilia GTAM and the Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce Electric.
More notable than what cars are in the game is how they’ll be represented. A full dealership experience is promised, with players able to select options for their vehicles — colours, trims, wheel types, model grade, body styles, engines, gearboxes — rather than a car list sporting duplicate models of the same vehicle.
How extensive this will be remains to be seen, but with many car brands using 3D car configurators for their product websites these days it could be pretty deep.
Cars will feature improved mechanical damage, but visual damage is set to be more limited as car manufacturers are becoming more strict over depictions of that and KS is having to find compromises to allow for an even level of visual damage across the vehicles in the game.
Assetto Corsa EVO Tracks
At present there’s only really one confirmed circuit which is, of course, the Nurburgring. We have seen others but there’s not an official launch track list at this point. Massarutto comments that the goal for the “1.0” launch version of ACE is 20 circuits, but that it may be a little less than this — 15 as a minimum, with 20 at least by six months post-launch.
KS is targeting five tracks for the Early Access launch in January, which just so happens to be the exact number we’ve seen so far. That suggests we’ll see Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari (Imola), Brands Hatch, Fuji Speedway, and Mount Panorama, along with the various courses at the Nurburgring.
The courses, all real-world locations, will be spread across all continents — and again, it’s probable we could take a good guess based on what circuits are currently in ACC — and feature day/night cycles and weather variations.
That will include dynamic global illumination, physically based sky, volumetric fog, and dynamic particle effects, as well as a “gravity based dynamic track technology” that determines how and where surface water flows, accumulates, and persists.
However the most interesting track coming to the game isn’t actually a track at all…
Assetto Corsa EVO Eifel Open-World Map
A roughly 600-square mile region of Germany, centered on the Nurburgring Nordschleife, will be recreated in game for a full, open-world exploration mode.
This has been created essentially due to mods for the original title: Kunos noted that free-roaming maps are among the most popular mods created and downloaded by the Assetto Corsa community, so it made its own!
The map has been generated from LiDAR data supplied by the German government’s own information created for the national mapping agency BKG (Bundesamt fur Kartographie und Geodasie, or Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy) which is accurate down to 25cm.
KS has developed a terrain generation technology for dealing with this enormous mesh, which will procedurally generate trees and accurate buildings in their proper locations, and the whole thing will be streamed so that the player only sees what they need to see at any given time. We’re not clear on whether that means a network connection is required to use the open world map or not, but we would assume so at this point.
The entire area, including away from the surfaced roads, can be explored — so we hope that some off-road cars will be coming! — and while it will eventually reach 600 square miles (quoted at 1600 square kilometers), it’ll be added in stages. A much smaller area will be included in the Early Access launch and it will expand over time with updates.
Businesses on the map in real-life may be included in the game and players may interact with them. Kunos has had more than 300 requests so far, though some may not wish to be included and — for gameplay purposes — there may be some that are in the game map but not the real world. In both cases, that would included gas stations, at which a player must refuel/recharge their car, and there’ll be challenges and events on the map too.
While speed limits won’t feature in the open-world, there could be emergency vehicles — police cars and ambulances — on the public roads in the game’s future, just as common traffic vehicles.
There’ll be some simplification of the weather systems used on the circuits for the open-world map to keep from being a resource hog — snow is not set to feature at launch, and may not be included at all — and that suggests that there’ll be a gap between driving on the ‘Ring and driving around the Eifel so that you won’t be able to seamlessly transition between them.
Assetto Corsa EVO Career Mode
This feature hasn’t been greatly explored to date, but Kunos has briefly touched on a couple of details — referring to the career as “the RPG of the petrolheads”.
To that end there’ll be an in-game economy system, although the only details we have on that at the moment are that it’s exclusively in-game and cannot be topped up with external purchases. ACE will have no microtransactions.
It’s also been noted that there will be a driving licence requirement in the game. In essence you’ll need to have the appropriate licence to qualify for driving the type of car you want to drive as well as having the money to buy and tune it.
Kunos has rebuilt the AI for the new game (and new engine), and is touting an inbuilt learning system that allows the AI to improve and adapt. Different AI drivers might have different behaviors and you may encounter certain AI more often and find that they have changed how they drive based on their previous interactions with you…
Assetto Corsa EVO Multiplayer
Mulltiplayer won’t be included in the first early access iteration, but is set to arrive after a couple of updates — in order to allow players to test parts of the game in stages.
When it does arrive it will feature a ranking system developed from that of ACC, as well as filters, and an anti-cheat system, though KS hasn’t gone into any specifics about the nature of any of this or what online races will be offered.
Assetto Corsa EVO Mods
Lastly, Assetto Corsa EVO will continue to support mods, allowing players to add their own cars, tracks, open-world maps and — as we’ve seen with the first title — just about anything that takes their fancy, at least in the PC version.
As with Assetto Corsa, this is going to be something that isn’t initially available through the early access period, but once the title becomes a full release version the modding tools will be released.
GTPlanet will, of course, also host mods for ACE through our free GTPlanet Downloads service.
