Brendan Rorrison

When it comes to a good-value racing game on PlayStation 4, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better game than Driveclub. With plenty of tracks and cars being added for free and at a premium, owning all the content gives you a serious amount of virtual cars, events and tracks to play around with. To make the various parts of Driveclub—the base game, Bikes expansion, and Season Pass—more appealing to players new and old, The UK and European PlayStation Stores both currently offer limited-time price reductions on the game.

The world of iRacing has had a good start to 2017. Following the huge announcement of Porsche joining the PC simulation’s car roster, the team behind the subscription-based racer has now begun to tease the long-awaited addition of dirt driving within the game. Although it’s just a small glimpse of what is to come, it’s certainly exciting.

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During the month of December, the Top Gear website counted down its own version of the top 50 driving games ever made. The range of games included in its list was varied with realistic sims like GTR2 being placed alongside all-out fantasy games like Super Mario Kart. With so many different driving games included, the number one spot would have to be something truly special, and what better winner than the original timeless Gran Turismo on PlayStation—the game that redefined the genre.

Following last week’s announcement, Assetto Corsa’s latest fictional circuit has been teased by Kunos in a selection of images released over the past few days. The free-of-charge circuit is supposed to be based in Scotland and it looks like Kunos has nailed the country’s dreary (yet beautiful!) look if these snaps are anything to go by.

Forza Horizon 3’s weekly event cycle looks to have a strong start in 2017 with Forzathon ramping up this month with a rare Subaru, expensive Lykan, and … a horn, all winnable by participating in the challenges each week in January.

The long awaited ‘Red Pack’ for Assetto Corsa on Xbox One and PS4 finally has a release window, with developer Kunos dropping the news today on Twitter. The pack launched in 2016 for PC players and offers a very nice selection of Italy’s finest racing machines. Alongside new cars, the track roster will also see a new premium addition.

Ah the festive period — is there a better time to be merry for days on end? We sincerely doubt it. With parties left, right and center, one may expect that big organizations also get in on the fun. It seems Polyphony Digital is no exception, based on tweets by original GT Academy winner Lucas Ordóñez and Super GT driver Satoshi Motoyama. Both racers attended the annual party, held at the Japan offices of the Gran Turismo creators.

Recent eSports events like the ‘Road to Vegas’ focus on a merger of sim racing athletes and actual racing drivers competing on a single platform, providing a place for both to compete that doesn’t require either party to have years of training in the other discipline. However, a cross-dimensional approach could happen as soon as two years time according to Formula 1’s Chief Technical Officer, John Morrison.

What a month it’s been for fans of the Porsche brand. Not only have we seen DLC packs released for Assetto Corsa, but the huge reveal that EA no longer hold the exclusivity rights for the motorsport icon has been met with joyous reception around the world — Santa couldn’t bring a better gift to sim racing fans.

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As far as sim racing eSports prize money goes, you’ll be hard stretched to beat what the Cloud Sport organized ‘Road to Vegas’ championship is offering – a staggering $1,000,000. Through a collaboration with Formula E, racers from the biggest and best virtual racing teams have been locking horns on PC title rFactor 2 throughout the season to be in contention for the championship – and the finalists have been decided.

Project CARS’ latest eSports tournament drew to a close over the weekend, with £4500 being dished out across the lucky winners on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Streamed live on Twitch, the best drivers on Slightly Mad Studios’ 2015 racer went head-to-head across two 15 lap races on British circuits Brands Hatch and Oulton Park in the Ginetta GT3 racer. The end results were anything but tame with such a huge prize at stake.

There’s never too much of a good thing and we’re continuing to use that mantra as we bring you even more direct gameplay footage from 2017’s upcoming GT Sport. We’ve had a look at the Nürburgring, Tokyo Expressway and Brands Hatch so far but this latest video takes us down and dirty at Fisherman’s Ranch.

After months of off-screen gameplay, our patience has been rewarded at PSX 2016 with direct capture videos of GT Sport in action being provided by Polyphony themselves. Yesterday, we focused on clips from the Nürburgring as well as Tokyo Expressway, abut today we have footage of both the Green Hell and the venerable Brands Hatch in glorious 1080p, 60fps.

DLC has changed the way we play games. Gone are the days where you buy a ‘finished’ product on release as additional content and Season Passes become more prominent in each new release. The racing genre naturally lends itself to embracing this new delivery model, since there will always be ‘that’ car or track fans plead for inclusion. Arcade, semi-sim or full-blown simulation — regardless of the sub-genre we have examples of developers and publishers outlining extensive DLC plans and asking for your premium to make it happen.

After last week’s Thanksgiving inspired events, Forzathon turns it’s eye to giving you some more cash to spend on the 300+ cars in-game, as well as a 30% discount on every one of them. This week’s events are as easy as they come and you won’t have to worry about finding a game of Infected or hoping those in online adventure choose a class that isn’t based around hypercars — all events can be done without the multiplayer aspect of the game.

Although Black Friday isn’t as synonymous with Thanksgiving as it is with the North American side of the world, that doesn’t mean that we don’t love a good deal at any time of the year. It should surprise nobody then that the UK has welcomed the Black Friday tradition with open arms, bringing with it tech deals across all the major retailers on our little island.

Good news, Porsche (and Assetto Corsa) fans. After the sublime first DLC pack celebrating the German motorsport legends, Kunos has just released the second act, focusing on some more iconic Porsche models. Well, if you’re a lucky player on PC: consoles gamers still have to wait.

After an exciting Audi RS6 showdown, the racing keeps getting more intense in the Forza Racing Championship. Drivers this week will be treated to some high speed fun in both the Elite and Recreational categories. The stars of the track this week will be the Audi #2 Audi Team Joest R18 e-tron quattro for Elite-class drivers and the Audi RS5 Coupe for those participating in the Recreational Series.