With all the hype around Assetto Corsa EVO, everyone wants to know what the game will and won't have included. OverTake.gg's Michel Wolk sat down with Co-Founder and Executive Manager of Kunos Simulazioni, Marco Massarutto, at the Sim Racing Expo to find out!
Kunos's latest title, Assetto Corsa EVO, has been stealing headlines all over the Sim Racing Expo event. Check out the video or edited transcript below to find out exactly what Co-Founder and Executive Manager, Marco Massarutto has in store for us sim racing fans.
Assetto Corsa EVO focuses on road cars as well as racing cars, your other titles Assetto Corsa Competizione are just GT3, GT4 and now the GT2 pack as well, what makes Assetto Corsa EVO different from your previous titles and not just a sequel to the first game?
It's its own thing, so it is a completely new build and the current pronunciation is EVO because we wanted to keep the Italian roots and the style of the game to be Italian. Whilst it shares the same name as Assetto Corsa it is not a sequel but it kept the same vision in terms of the kind of content with cars, tracks and gameplay modes.
We went back to the basics of what we did many years ago, but it's not a sequel. It's not just bigger than the first Assetto, we have expanded it from every point of view. We have, of course, improved the physics and the handling as well as the graphics. We created a completely brand-new engine for this title, an engine that is designed specifically for racing game content.
We made this decision to stay in control of the technology behind EVO and we also wanted to express the
very best that a racing simulator can achieve in terms of visuals, sounds, physics, graphics and so on. We have expanded EVO a lot in terms of gameplay which was one of the downsides of the first Assetto.
What are the main differences in gameplay compared to the first Assetto Corsa?
This time around, we will feature a game economy so that players do not just have a wide spread of cars to choose from. You can own the cars, collect the cars, customize your cars and you can also tune them extensively.
Alfa Romeo Giulietta
Concerning customization, how far can you go with it in Assetto Corsa EVO?
Tuning is for some people, just a mechanic in the game. They want to make their car more effective on the track or the road, whereas others just like to customize the car because you don't need specific rims sometimes unless you are racing to be faster. If you just want to have the beautiful rims or the rims you like or the spoiler or something else, that is possible.
Can you change the power output by, for example, adding a bigger turbo or changing the car to stage 1 as an example?
We do have this in the program and we are cooperating with some aftermarket companies to bring this to life in EVO. We are going to unveil this as soon as we get into the Early Access program.
The partnership we have is crucial because we want the way you modify your cars in EVO to represent how they would work in the real world. You can decide to mount a huge spoiler on the rear of the car and possibly
you will discover that it can worsen the
performance or not.
For example, if you like a specific car model and you want to buy one in red and you get it as a stock car and like it exactly as it is, that is also fine. The cars are there to be enjoyed with other rims and parts if you wish to do so.
There have been many rumours circulating about a freeroam mode in EVO, especially the Eiffel roads around the Nordschleife. Is this the direction EVO wants to go in?
We have confirmed that we will have free roaming, because with some specific cars that you love maybe they are not so interesting when being driven on the track because of performance handling. For example, in the previous trailer, you can see the Morgan Super-three, the three-wheeler that is an amazing car to drive and have a trip with, but would be useless to drive it on the track probably.
It would be useless to drive a racing car on roads, for example. So it's like in real life with motorbikes we have so much power for bikes that does not make any sense. These bikes need to be driven on the track because they are dangerous on the roads. You don't need a very powerful car to have a lot of fun, sometimes it is quite the opposite because if you have a car like the Miata or the Honda S2000 that is quite interesting to be drifted, you can have endless fun.
We put a lot of care and attention into the driving model of every single car we have that people can enjoy. One hundred per cent of the map and track models we put into the game have some roads that a lot of people will enjoy thanks to the usage of Lidar data.
Alpine A110. Image: Kunos Simulazioni
Outside of the just race tracks, do you intend to have testing grounds or gymkhana-style circuits to mess around with your cars in?
We are going to create a 'Proving Grounds' so that you can test your cars and have a lot of fun with them. Drifting will be a relevant part of the game because we have a huge drifting community within the first Assetto Corsa. We are not going to change this, as we don't have a drift mode with random drift
physics for the cars. You can just drift any car in EVO if you are good at doing that.
What we want to do in terms of gameplay is, we want to give our audience some modes that are specific for drifting so that they can have even more fun within their speciality.
Can you confirm that there will be a healthy amount of JDM content like there was in the first Assetto Corsa?
I can confirm the presence of some Japanese brands as we had in the first Assetto Corsa, but we will have some new brand new manufacturers as well which is good news.
The target is to expand the licensing in all of the countries to give even more variety. In the original Assetto Corsa, we were very European-centered because we came from nothing and eventually, we expanded into a wider range of cars.
The American brands, European and Italian Brands and Asian and Japanese brands must be good so that we
can balance the game properly. We aim to do the same thing with the circuits and roads in the game.
What new weather features can we expect to see in EVO that are not in Assetto Corse Competizione or the original Assetto Corsa?
We started from ACC for the rain system, but using a different approach. We have a dynamic track and dynamic weather setup with EVO and the two systems work together because the the track grip is influenced by the weather. Not just in terms of how much wet track there is or how little grip you can get on a wet track but because the car slides more and so on. The track is much more alive now.
The Mount Panorama special event, for example, is in the wet and it gets worse while you are driving because it's raining so much. However, in the Brands Hatch event, you instead can see that the track is still damp with some puddles here and there with the surface also still wet, but you have a dry line that you can see that lets you feel the difference between the different levels of compounds and the more you drive the more the line dries out.
The line you drive will dry exactly where you put your tyres so if, for example, you choose the completely wrong line to drive, the track will dry with that line as opposed to a pre-determined one.
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car. Image: Kunos Simulazioni
Will there be different compounds of tyres for the different weather conditions?
Yes, each car will have the ability to have differing tyre compounds fitted. You can choose to run dry tyres on a wet track or the other way round if you so wish to do so.
You could get some dry points on a track and you could arrive at the point where you have to decide if it's better to use slick tyres or wet tyres in a racing session for example. There is not a specific tyre partner so it is very dynamic.
Will there be native triple-screen support and VR support?
I heard some rumours that AC EVO will just be an enhanced version of the first Assetto Corsa engine
powered with modes like pure, this is wrong. It has been completely redesigned from scratch because the tools we use for it have been developed from scratch as well. They are much more powerftyreas is the
game engine. We want to keep the technology under our control as the new engine has been
specifically designed and created for the racing game environment.
VR and triple screen support are at the top of our list because the support for triple screens and
VR with the unreal engine is out of our control. We make a lot of work around and cooperate also with the guys from Epic to make it as user-friendly as we can, but there are some limits that we can't go over.
Will there be any form of livery editor available for players?
This is certainly in the plans. You can completely customize your vehicles, but also you can change the material finish. You can have a glossy finish or something like matte. You can go wild with the customization.
It is in the schedule to have a livery system that can let you apply liveries and so on and also share with other users so that they can see your liveries without the need to share and download files.
Hyundai N Vision. Image: Kunos Simulazioni
How are you improving the replay cameras?
What we are doing is improving quite a lot of the entire camera system, especially the TV cameras so that they can be much more dynamic and give much more realism to your races. Also, the cameras should be able to follow the car in a way that is much more similar to what you can see on TV.
Will Assetto Corsa EVO officially support mods?
We want to support mods like we did in the first Assetto Corsa. The modding will be available after we complete the Early Access program and not before, so they will have to be patient! What we want to do is create a platform where the most talented modders can share their content whilst cooperating directly with the car manufacturers.
To be clear, we do not want to support the grabbing of content from other games because this is unfair. But we want to give the right visibility to those modders that are very talented. We want to provide the very best selection of mods so that our audience can enjoy them. This will include both tracks and cars.
Finally, when is the early access available for people to jump into and enjoy the game?
The early access period is due to start on January 16th, 2025. We are working night and day to ensure that this deadline is met, however, this will just be for the Steam players. The console players will have to wait until the title is fully released.
There is always a gap between the two releases of PC and console and we are trying to reduce this gap but it is quite challenging.
Do you have any other questions about Assetto Corsa EVO that you would like answered? Let us know in the comments below and we will add them to our list of things to find out during our next conversation!
Kunos's latest title, Assetto Corsa EVO, has been stealing headlines all over the Sim Racing Expo event. Check out the video or edited transcript below to find out exactly what Co-Founder and Executive Manager, Marco Massarutto has in store for us sim racing fans.
Marco Massarutto Interview
Assetto Corsa EVO focuses on road cars as well as racing cars, your other titles Assetto Corsa Competizione are just GT3, GT4 and now the GT2 pack as well, what makes Assetto Corsa EVO different from your previous titles and not just a sequel to the first game?
It's its own thing, so it is a completely new build and the current pronunciation is EVO because we wanted to keep the Italian roots and the style of the game to be Italian. Whilst it shares the same name as Assetto Corsa it is not a sequel but it kept the same vision in terms of the kind of content with cars, tracks and gameplay modes.
We went back to the basics of what we did many years ago, but it's not a sequel. It's not just bigger than the first Assetto, we have expanded it from every point of view. We have, of course, improved the physics and the handling as well as the graphics. We created a completely brand-new engine for this title, an engine that is designed specifically for racing game content.
We made this decision to stay in control of the technology behind EVO and we also wanted to express the
very best that a racing simulator can achieve in terms of visuals, sounds, physics, graphics and so on. We have expanded EVO a lot in terms of gameplay which was one of the downsides of the first Assetto.
What are the main differences in gameplay compared to the first Assetto Corsa?
This time around, we will feature a game economy so that players do not just have a wide spread of cars to choose from. You can own the cars, collect the cars, customize your cars and you can also tune them extensively.
Alfa Romeo Giulietta
Concerning customization, how far can you go with it in Assetto Corsa EVO?
Tuning is for some people, just a mechanic in the game. They want to make their car more effective on the track or the road, whereas others just like to customize the car because you don't need specific rims sometimes unless you are racing to be faster. If you just want to have the beautiful rims or the rims you like or the spoiler or something else, that is possible.
Can you change the power output by, for example, adding a bigger turbo or changing the car to stage 1 as an example?
We do have this in the program and we are cooperating with some aftermarket companies to bring this to life in EVO. We are going to unveil this as soon as we get into the Early Access program.
The partnership we have is crucial because we want the way you modify your cars in EVO to represent how they would work in the real world. You can decide to mount a huge spoiler on the rear of the car and possibly
you will discover that it can worsen the
performance or not.
For example, if you like a specific car model and you want to buy one in red and you get it as a stock car and like it exactly as it is, that is also fine. The cars are there to be enjoyed with other rims and parts if you wish to do so.
There have been many rumours circulating about a freeroam mode in EVO, especially the Eiffel roads around the Nordschleife. Is this the direction EVO wants to go in?
We have confirmed that we will have free roaming, because with some specific cars that you love maybe they are not so interesting when being driven on the track because of performance handling. For example, in the previous trailer, you can see the Morgan Super-three, the three-wheeler that is an amazing car to drive and have a trip with, but would be useless to drive it on the track probably.
It would be useless to drive a racing car on roads, for example. So it's like in real life with motorbikes we have so much power for bikes that does not make any sense. These bikes need to be driven on the track because they are dangerous on the roads. You don't need a very powerful car to have a lot of fun, sometimes it is quite the opposite because if you have a car like the Miata or the Honda S2000 that is quite interesting to be drifted, you can have endless fun.
We put a lot of care and attention into the driving model of every single car we have that people can enjoy. One hundred per cent of the map and track models we put into the game have some roads that a lot of people will enjoy thanks to the usage of Lidar data.
Alpine A110. Image: Kunos Simulazioni
Outside of the just race tracks, do you intend to have testing grounds or gymkhana-style circuits to mess around with your cars in?
We are going to create a 'Proving Grounds' so that you can test your cars and have a lot of fun with them. Drifting will be a relevant part of the game because we have a huge drifting community within the first Assetto Corsa. We are not going to change this, as we don't have a drift mode with random drift
physics for the cars. You can just drift any car in EVO if you are good at doing that.
What we want to do in terms of gameplay is, we want to give our audience some modes that are specific for drifting so that they can have even more fun within their speciality.
Can you confirm that there will be a healthy amount of JDM content like there was in the first Assetto Corsa?
I can confirm the presence of some Japanese brands as we had in the first Assetto Corsa, but we will have some new brand new manufacturers as well which is good news.
The target is to expand the licensing in all of the countries to give even more variety. In the original Assetto Corsa, we were very European-centered because we came from nothing and eventually, we expanded into a wider range of cars.
The American brands, European and Italian Brands and Asian and Japanese brands must be good so that we
can balance the game properly. We aim to do the same thing with the circuits and roads in the game.
What new weather features can we expect to see in EVO that are not in Assetto Corse Competizione or the original Assetto Corsa?
We started from ACC for the rain system, but using a different approach. We have a dynamic track and dynamic weather setup with EVO and the two systems work together because the the track grip is influenced by the weather. Not just in terms of how much wet track there is or how little grip you can get on a wet track but because the car slides more and so on. The track is much more alive now.
The Mount Panorama special event, for example, is in the wet and it gets worse while you are driving because it's raining so much. However, in the Brands Hatch event, you instead can see that the track is still damp with some puddles here and there with the surface also still wet, but you have a dry line that you can see that lets you feel the difference between the different levels of compounds and the more you drive the more the line dries out.
The line you drive will dry exactly where you put your tyres so if, for example, you choose the completely wrong line to drive, the track will dry with that line as opposed to a pre-determined one.
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car. Image: Kunos Simulazioni
Will there be different compounds of tyres for the different weather conditions?
Yes, each car will have the ability to have differing tyre compounds fitted. You can choose to run dry tyres on a wet track or the other way round if you so wish to do so.
You could get some dry points on a track and you could arrive at the point where you have to decide if it's better to use slick tyres or wet tyres in a racing session for example. There is not a specific tyre partner so it is very dynamic.
Will there be native triple-screen support and VR support?
I heard some rumours that AC EVO will just be an enhanced version of the first Assetto Corsa engine
powered with modes like pure, this is wrong. It has been completely redesigned from scratch because the tools we use for it have been developed from scratch as well. They are much more powerftyreas is the
game engine. We want to keep the technology under our control as the new engine has been
specifically designed and created for the racing game environment.
VR and triple screen support are at the top of our list because the support for triple screens and
VR with the unreal engine is out of our control. We make a lot of work around and cooperate also with the guys from Epic to make it as user-friendly as we can, but there are some limits that we can't go over.
Will there be any form of livery editor available for players?
This is certainly in the plans. You can completely customize your vehicles, but also you can change the material finish. You can have a glossy finish or something like matte. You can go wild with the customization.
It is in the schedule to have a livery system that can let you apply liveries and so on and also share with other users so that they can see your liveries without the need to share and download files.
Hyundai N Vision. Image: Kunos Simulazioni
How are you improving the replay cameras?
What we are doing is improving quite a lot of the entire camera system, especially the TV cameras so that they can be much more dynamic and give much more realism to your races. Also, the cameras should be able to follow the car in a way that is much more similar to what you can see on TV.
Will Assetto Corsa EVO officially support mods?
We want to support mods like we did in the first Assetto Corsa. The modding will be available after we complete the Early Access program and not before, so they will have to be patient! What we want to do is create a platform where the most talented modders can share their content whilst cooperating directly with the car manufacturers.
To be clear, we do not want to support the grabbing of content from other games because this is unfair. But we want to give the right visibility to those modders that are very talented. We want to provide the very best selection of mods so that our audience can enjoy them. This will include both tracks and cars.
Finally, when is the early access available for people to jump into and enjoy the game?
The early access period is due to start on January 16th, 2025. We are working night and day to ensure that this deadline is met, however, this will just be for the Steam players. The console players will have to wait until the title is fully released.
There is always a gap between the two releases of PC and console and we are trying to reduce this gap but it is quite challenging.
Do you have any other questions about Assetto Corsa EVO that you would like answered? Let us know in the comments below and we will add them to our list of things to find out during our next conversation!
