I woke up on the same day surprised to see the articles and videos just like everyone else, including the rest of the moderation team. But I have followed things for a long time, so there's a lot I could speculate on.
Before writing this I found it helpful to go back and watch some videos about NFS Shift. We had ProStreet a few years earlier (I wasn't too into it), and then NFS Undercover which was so awful (reviewing 4/10 iirc). I had splashed out on a Logitech G25 wheel primarily to use with Test Drive Unlimited. I wasn't a sim racer at the time, but I was interested in driving games that supported the wheel and it's 6-speed H shifter. So I ended up with games like GT Legends, GTR2, Race 07, and of course NFS Shift
My overarching memory was that it was just fun to play. It made racing against opponents exciting since they would occasionally stuff up or even try to take you out on occasion - so it felt a bit more like playing with humans back when we had dodgy ADSL connections with no upload bandwidth. Evidenced by my YouTube videos for it being uploaded in glorious 360p. I probably didn't even have a 1080p monitor back then. The game also rewarded hitting apexes without ruining the immersion by plastering a glowing racing line on the tarmac. Little things like that would move me further towards sim racing which worked well with the wheel and causing me to largely ignore games designed only for gamepads.
Project CARS 1 was an exciting journey, mainly for the backstage pass in seeing how game development progresses, but at the time was novel for combining realistic driving with amazing graphics (compared to GTR, Race 07, rFactor, and so on). I wasn't too nerdy or anal on what exactly is a simulator or simcade, etc. The game 'simulated' lots of stuff and felt realistic enough to me.
There was an important PDF brochure made available when WMD was new and accepting sign-ups (before KickStarter was a thing), and I recall part of that discussing their background with full-on simulators like GTR 2 and slightly more casual games like GT and Forza with their massive sales numbers. The original aim was always to be somewhere in between if I'm not mistaken (I can't locate a copy of that PDF to check). But of course the game was considerably funded and steered directly by the community, and the loudest voices were of course looking for a sim, and that's the direction it took. SMS made sure publishing deals allowed them to retain creative control to avoid being forced down an arcade route.
I don't know much about the development for pCARS 3, but have observed a few things that you may have also noticed:
* There was no open WMD invitation for the community. A small number of outstanding contributors to the previous games might have been offered contractor positions (i.e. Austin O, Matt York).
* There were tweets from Ian back in 2018 regarding the 'fun' direction for pC3 and how it would be more a spiritual successor to NFS Shift - they can't use that name though if it belongs to EA.
* Paul 'Rushy', former director of DriveClub, joined SMS to work on pC3. You can kind of see his influence in the videos that have been released.
* Late 2019, Ian tweeted about being worth 100 million, how the next pCARS was amazing, and then that they sold to Codies for 30 million.
I honestly don't think Codies would have had much time to sway the direction of pC3 at all. The game trailer still features Bandai Namco's logo. The 'Shift' vibe was long expected.
We're assured that the 'sandbox' that was pC2 is still buried in pC3 and fully accessible to those that want it. It would be reassuring to see more of it right about now, but I get the impression we sim racers have to be a bit patient while SMS tries to get the attention of a new audience. I don't doubt that the sim sandbox is still there and that the physics will be familiar to pC2 players. I also don't doubt that the career could be largely ignored and gamey aspects disabled and hidden. The big questions in my view are:
* Why do pit lanes appear to be closed?, and
* How will casual players and sim racers go when it comes to avoiding each other in multiplayer lobbies? (Less of an issue for players associated with private leagues like ROOZ).
As a few of you gents know, I haven't done so much sim racing with a wheel these past few years after moving house, getting married, becoming a product manager, etc, etc. So in a somewhat selfish mindset, I don't mind seeing the next game go down this route. After all...
* There seems to be an open niche for an exciting racing *game* with realistic physics
* You don't normally begin building hype for a game by saying how similar it is to the previous version
* The game was in no part funded by the sim racing community, so SMS don't owe us anything - they can make whatever they want and see who buys it.
* Larger audience = more sales money, which is probably what investors want.
* It seems that 70% of sim racers hate everything SMS release anyway, so bother trying to keep pleasing them #
* There are quite a number of sim racing options available already for such a small market - and it would have been really weird if they released a sim that's 80% identical to Automobalista 2 which uses the same engine (and assets by the looks of things).
# I wonder if SMS tweets and forum posts saying how amazing their games are actually encourage players to shoot them down a bit. When I watched the PS5 reveal on Friday I didn't get that same vibe from other developers, who instead were more like "Here's a game we've been making - we hope you enjoy it."
The marketing on this also feels a bit off. I get the feeling the trailer was slated to launch on the same day as the Sony Future of gaming event - but then that event was postponed and no-one told the pC3 marketing team to follow suit. There's no mention of PS5/XSX support for pC3 right now but I don't see it as a concern - I'm sure it will come out (if not at launch, perhaps a few months later).
If you've made it this far, my takeaway would be:
* There's a sim still buried in there somewhere, just gotta wait longer for it to be revealed.
* We don't have to decide right now if we're going to buy it or not - I'm normally against preordering and I've not even seen any preorder bonuses advertised.
* For those of us on PC, the worst that could happen physics-wise is that we might just have to apply some FFB tweak files again. Perhaps community tweaks for pC2 or FFB from AM2 will find it's way into pC3.
Some interesting old videos about NFS Shift:
Well done if you read all of that. Hopefully it was useful.
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