The simulation platform’s Steve Myers has explained to RaceDepartment why it decided to purchase DRAG Outer Zones, turn it into ExoCross and how development is progressing.
Images: iRacing
An offroad racer set in space, with four worlds to explore, online racing and a series of challenges. The surface can be churned up, wheels can be smashed off.
ExoCross looks and sounds like a rambunctious romp, the ideal companion to everything getting so serious – sometimes you need to let off some steam by sliding around some corners in a Mad Max-style buggy.
Formerly DRAG Outer Zones by German team Orontes Games, the upcoming driving game is the brainchild of brothers Christian and Thorsten Folkers. The title was released via Steam’s early access programme in 2020 to little fanfare.
DRAG Outer Zones was an indie title launched via Early Access in 2020
Then, a surprise. Sim racing giant iRacing – known, up until recently, for staying in its lane – branched out and purchased the esoteric project towards the end of 2021. It then acquired Monster Games a month later.
World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing arrived on PlayStation and Xbox from the latter studio in September 2022, followed by a Nintendo Switch release just over a year later.
But nothing has surfaced yet from Orontes under iRacing’s stewardship. That’s about the change.
“I didn’t really think much of it. I clicked on it, and I started getting into the game.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this thing is really impressive’ and then when I learned it was two brothers that had basically done it all themselves, I was like ‘Oh, my gosh, I have to talk to these guys.’”
“We decided, ‘You know what, let’s just finish this’. It allowed us to get that product into the console space,” Myres tells RaceDepartment.
Following that initial contact and the purchase of the studio, however, the project expanded in scope. What was initially going to be a relatively straightforward project completion and console port has flourished into ExoCross – something that will use iRacing’s AI system to power opponents and arrive with a much greater list of environments and challenges.
A recent hire has been instrumental in that expansion…
“I was like, ‘Paul, this is the vehicle I’m thinking about – when people take a little pickup, they put some blown motor in the thing and then they put the big paddle mud tyres on it to launch them through mud dirt track strips?’
“That is what I want. All that noise, horsepower and wheel spinning, and I want it to be fun and drivable.”
“That is what we’ve created, the gaming and racing equivalent of that. That’s what the general idea is.”
Coleman joins after being credited with the DiRT Rally spin-off series, perhaps pertinently, an off-road driving game that also started life as a kernel of an idea and released via early access to much acclaim. That launch then provided the necessary funds to complete the project, release it on consoles and spawn a sequel.
As it happens, those who have purchased (or purchase now) the early access DRAG title on Steam will see their game on PC turn into ExoCross at launch. When version 1.0 arrives, it will simultaneously be released on PlayStation and Xbox too.
“Right now, we are trying to shoot for July or August, for the summertime,” theorises Myers, who will soon celebrate 20 years at iRacing.
“We wanted to try to and get it out by the end of last year and even the first quarter of this year, but I think what we realised as we were developing is that we feel like it’s going to be a better game than we anticipated.
“I think it really made us take a step back and go ‘alright, what let’s make sure that we do some of these things a little bit better’ because I think the game is going to be fun. I think people are going to like it.”
ExoCross is a ‘significant’ evolution of DRAG Outer Zones
From the outset, ExoCross is not trying to be the last word in simulation. It’s said to have handling that is designed for gamepad users first and foremost, Myres really driving home ‘fun’ as the primary brief.
“We just did this multiplayer test two hours ago,” he beams
“I laughed the entire time. When you’re just smiling and laughing for like an hour straight, you leave these sessions with face fatigue.
“I know how hard it is to create that feeling of enjoyment by just doing something as simple as pulling two triggers and using your two thumbs.
“You have to use the brakes and you have to modulate the gas. It feels kind of like SODA Off-Road Racing [a 1997 game developed in collaboration with Papyrus], that kind of truck feeling. There are cool environments, with space plants, trees and moons. I’m telling you; it is fun.”
It also has the rights to make NASCAR games from 2025 onwards and the ExoCross team has ideas for an additional project, set to be, according to Myers the “most ambitious mass-market game that we will have tried yet.”
The goal is to “not only generate [additional] revenue but also to hopefully build new racing fans” as the iRacing team sees real-world motorsport series facing ageing audiences.
Myers is indefatigable about not only the additional projects predominately for gamepad users on consoles, but also the long-term development of the main iRacing platform.
“I want to make it very clear, because I think there’s some confusion, iRacing itself is the same. Over the last four years, we’ve just been massively hiring, and I would say 90 per cent of those hires have been on the iRacing side.
“We’ve added three or four people to the studio that is making ExoCross and we have made two or three additions over at the Monster Games studio that was working on the World of Outlaws game and the [upcoming] NASCAR game.
“Yes, we’ve grown dramatically, but it’s been mostly on the iRacing side.”
All that remains now is to validate these claims by testing ExoCross – while the early access DRAG clearly has potential, it is very light on content and structure.
Seemingly significant changes have been made in the intervening three-and-a-bit years. It sounds like we won’t have to wait too long to find out if they have been for the better.
Let us know your thoughts about iRacing’s expansion and your expectations for ExoCross in the comments below.
Images: iRacing
An offroad racer set in space, with four worlds to explore, online racing and a series of challenges. The surface can be churned up, wheels can be smashed off.
ExoCross looks and sounds like a rambunctious romp, the ideal companion to everything getting so serious – sometimes you need to let off some steam by sliding around some corners in a Mad Max-style buggy.
Formerly DRAG Outer Zones by German team Orontes Games, the upcoming driving game is the brainchild of brothers Christian and Thorsten Folkers. The title was released via Steam’s early access programme in 2020 to little fanfare.
Then, a surprise. Sim racing giant iRacing – known, up until recently, for staying in its lane – branched out and purchased the esoteric project towards the end of 2021. It then acquired Monster Games a month later.
World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing arrived on PlayStation and Xbox from the latter studio in September 2022, followed by a Nintendo Switch release just over a year later.
But nothing has surfaced yet from Orontes under iRacing’s stewardship. That’s about the change.
A Surprise Discovery
“I was scrolling through Steam, and I just saw this cool icon,” explains Steve Myers, Executive Vice President at iRacing to RaceDepartment“I didn’t really think much of it. I clicked on it, and I started getting into the game.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this thing is really impressive’ and then when I learned it was two brothers that had basically done it all themselves, I was like ‘Oh, my gosh, I have to talk to these guys.’”
“We decided, ‘You know what, let’s just finish this’. It allowed us to get that product into the console space,” Myres tells RaceDepartment.
Following that initial contact and the purchase of the studio, however, the project expanded in scope. What was initially going to be a relatively straightforward project completion and console port has flourished into ExoCross – something that will use iRacing’s AI system to power opponents and arrive with a much greater list of environments and challenges.
A recent hire has been instrumental in that expansion…
The Paul Coleman Factor
“Paul Coleman, who’s one of the designers that we’ve hired, he has been the one that I tasked with working on the physics,” the iRacing veteran explains.“I was like, ‘Paul, this is the vehicle I’m thinking about – when people take a little pickup, they put some blown motor in the thing and then they put the big paddle mud tyres on it to launch them through mud dirt track strips?’
“That is what I want. All that noise, horsepower and wheel spinning, and I want it to be fun and drivable.”
“That is what we’ve created, the gaming and racing equivalent of that. That’s what the general idea is.”
Coleman joins after being credited with the DiRT Rally spin-off series, perhaps pertinently, an off-road driving game that also started life as a kernel of an idea and released via early access to much acclaim. That launch then provided the necessary funds to complete the project, release it on consoles and spawn a sequel.
As it happens, those who have purchased (or purchase now) the early access DRAG title on Steam will see their game on PC turn into ExoCross at launch. When version 1.0 arrives, it will simultaneously be released on PlayStation and Xbox too.
2024 Release
The freshly titled ExoCross was set for a release late last year, but instead that was shifted to sometime in 2024.“Right now, we are trying to shoot for July or August, for the summertime,” theorises Myers, who will soon celebrate 20 years at iRacing.
“We wanted to try to and get it out by the end of last year and even the first quarter of this year, but I think what we realised as we were developing is that we feel like it’s going to be a better game than we anticipated.
“I think it really made us take a step back and go ‘alright, what let’s make sure that we do some of these things a little bit better’ because I think the game is going to be fun. I think people are going to like it.”
From the outset, ExoCross is not trying to be the last word in simulation. It’s said to have handling that is designed for gamepad users first and foremost, Myres really driving home ‘fun’ as the primary brief.
“We just did this multiplayer test two hours ago,” he beams
“I laughed the entire time. When you’re just smiling and laughing for like an hour straight, you leave these sessions with face fatigue.
“I know how hard it is to create that feeling of enjoyment by just doing something as simple as pulling two triggers and using your two thumbs.
“You have to use the brakes and you have to modulate the gas. It feels kind of like SODA Off-Road Racing [a 1997 game developed in collaboration with Papyrus], that kind of truck feeling. There are cool environments, with space plants, trees and moons. I’m telling you; it is fun.”
iRacing’s Recent Growth Spurt
It turns out the World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing and ExoCross games are just the start of the expansion for the Massachusetts-based company.It also has the rights to make NASCAR games from 2025 onwards and the ExoCross team has ideas for an additional project, set to be, according to Myers the “most ambitious mass-market game that we will have tried yet.”
The goal is to “not only generate [additional] revenue but also to hopefully build new racing fans” as the iRacing team sees real-world motorsport series facing ageing audiences.
Myers is indefatigable about not only the additional projects predominately for gamepad users on consoles, but also the long-term development of the main iRacing platform.
“I want to make it very clear, because I think there’s some confusion, iRacing itself is the same. Over the last four years, we’ve just been massively hiring, and I would say 90 per cent of those hires have been on the iRacing side.
“We’ve added three or four people to the studio that is making ExoCross and we have made two or three additions over at the Monster Games studio that was working on the World of Outlaws game and the [upcoming] NASCAR game.
“Yes, we’ve grown dramatically, but it’s been mostly on the iRacing side.”
All that remains now is to validate these claims by testing ExoCross – while the early access DRAG clearly has potential, it is very light on content and structure.
Seemingly significant changes have been made in the intervening three-and-a-bit years. It sounds like we won’t have to wait too long to find out if they have been for the better.
Let us know your thoughts about iRacing’s expansion and your expectations for ExoCross in the comments below.
