Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Project CARS 2 is due to hit the shelves in just three short months, and to ease the wait Slightly Mad Studios have revealed more about the race options to be found in the title.
SMS have made a lot of noise over the past few months about the various weather effects and dynamic track conditions featured in Project CARS 2, and now it is time for the developers to reveal a bit more information about what options will be available to the players come September 22nd.
First bit of news comes as something we already suspected from the beginning.. When players select race length the game will allow both number of laps or race time duration to be selected. Perfect for setting up long distance endurance events such as the Le Mans 24 Hours or World Endurance Championship style races, however as an added twist and element of authenticity the developers have allowed players to also select the date in which the race takes place, with certain events such as the Indy 500 or Le Mans defaulting to the actual race date of the real world event.
As well as giving a level of authenticity to some of the more high profile race events, date choices can also have an impact on the condition of the track you select.
"Selecting any random date that strikes your fancy matters because of LiveTrack 3.0. Choosing, say, a December date for Fuji will invariably mean your race will occur in cold conditions, opening up the possibility of snow. Project CARS 2, with its GPS-located tracks, will replicate your chosen track’s real-world weather: In other words, if the forecast is for snow in December at the scanned ’Ring, and you choose that date and track, snow is what you’ll be racing in. Wind, meanwhile, can play havoc with your open-wheel, aero’-dependent IndyCar—getting a tail wind on a crisp morning in October into Turn 1 that has yet to be warmed by the sun is the kind of racing that will make Project CARS 2 both challenging and viscerally unforgettable".
Particularly cool and something I'm exceptionally excited to try myself is the way the track and weather interact with each other under changing conditions. SMS have confirmed that using the GPS positioning, the angle of the sun will have a bearing on the way a circuit evolves throughout an event. An example given by the developers can be seen below:
"A scenario where it has rained through the night but the dawn comes clear and the morning sunny, those turns lying in the shade will take far longer to dry than turns that are directly warmed by the sun. Deciding, then, what lines to take, and which tyres you want to be on, becomes as crucial in Project CARS 2 as it does in real-world motorsport".
Moving away from weather for a while, SMS have also confirmed that the new game will indeed feature "fully animated pitstops" for all the default car content within the game. Players will have the option of making a manual pit entry and box entry, or the option exists for the computer to take over your pit stop procedure from the moment you enter the speed limit zone of the pit road. However it is once you hit your spot that things get impressive, as now the new game features motion capture technology to bring animated pit crew and pitstop procedures to the title.
"The biggest challenge in creating this fully dynamic and beautifully realised animation was in capturing all the required body movements that take place in the many varied motorsport series featured in Project CARS 2, and their associated pit-stop rules. For example, some series allow tyre changes and fuel refills to happen simultaneously, whilst others must see tyre changes completed before fuel can be put into the car. You will experience pit-stops precisely as they occur in the real-world motorsport discipline you have chosen to run".
All in all it looks like Slightly Mad Studios have put a lot of work into the little details that make an incredible racing simulation. Hopefully with lots of positive noises coming from the studio the new title can finally deliver on the promise of the original game.
Project CARS 2 will be available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC 22nd September 2017.
Check out the Project CARS 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment to catch up with the latest news, engage in lively discussions with the community and find out all you need to know about the simulation prior to release in September.
Happy with the customisation options in PCARS 2? Looking forward to the big Bentley? Which cars / series / classification of racing so far unannounced would you like to see added? Let us know in the comments section below!
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