Davide Brivio, game director for Assetto Corsa EVO at Kunos Simulazioni, has revealed that the game will offer the ability to option your cars from the showroom — including different standard engines and specifications — just as you would in the real world.
Brivio was speaking to Italian site Multiplayer.it in an interview seemingly at KS’s headquarters, which included a test drive in a preview build of the game — two months ahead of the early access launch on Steam in January 2025.
While much of the article covers ground we’re familiar with, the detail regarding car options comes a little bit out of nowhere. Confirming that there will be “a lot of car models in the game” (as we’d expect!), Brivio also noted the possibility of configuring your car to real-world specifications.
“For each car, all the configurations and engines that you would find in any dealership will be available,” he commented. “If your favorite car is sold both in petrol and diesel, for example, or in a version that has 17-inch wheels or a sunroof fitted, then it will also be the case in our game.”
It’s a fascinating and very much long overdue aspect in racing games that feature real, road-going vehicles. While we have no idea of the extent of this function, in principle you could go to a showroom and select a “base” car — say a Porsche 911 — and then pick your engine, grade, gearbox, and so on to create a final car. Hopefully we’ll also be able to choose correct- and wrong-hand drive too (you can decide for yourself which is which) where applicable.
This would also do away with the thorny notion of “duplicates” which we see cropping up in many titles, wherein each individual specification of a vehicle — sometimes even a special paint code — is classed as a discrete entry. It’d certainly be interesting with brands like Bentley which claims 46 billion different standard configurations are available…
With ACE intended as a simulation-focused title, the different options could well have different performance metrics. That could be something as ordinary as wheel options affecting suspension performance, or as complex as a sunroof decreasing torsional rigidity.
Multiplayer.it also notes that a wide range of aesthetic car modifications are available and these too can affect car performance rather than the Need for Speed approach of Barrying (to paraphrase “tamarra”) your vehicle.
Brivio also briefly covers the proposed “career” mode of Assetto Corsa EVO, noting that while “Kunos doesn’t have the experience or the size to create a campaign in the classic sense”, the goal is to allow the player to have as much freedom as they like.
Players will earn credits but, aside from having to progress through licences in order to get access to more powerful vehicles, there’s no compulsion to spend them in any particular way. “If you want to buy fifty Alpines, in every available color, you can do it. If instead you want to save money, event after event, to make a hypercar yours as soon as possible, you will be allowed to,” notes Brivio.
All of the information to date on ACE seems rather positive, other than how long it’s going to take to get our hands on the finished game. Early Access begins on Steam on January 16 2025, and it’s likely to be several months before it exits to become a full title. A console version is mooted, but don’t expect that to come any time soon either.
