How come there are so few racing games coming out lately? Feels like it’s just codemasters doing their thing, some struggling indie games and a truckload of shovelware. I’m not saying it’s dead but wasn’t racing games one of the primary genres?
Another thing that bugs me with the few games that come out is the lack of progression and immersion. NFS Unbound impressed me slightly with actually starting you out with a low spec car and having slow (by modern standards) progression. However halfway through when you have fast and “cool” cars you really felt the games mediocrity.
Dirt rally 1 and 2 has economy systems, but after a single championship you can basically buy whatever car you want. The rallies are immersive but everything between is just boring menues.
Why do you think the state of racing games is so poor? The industry being shit? Audiences not playing them anymore?
Racing in VR is such a great experience, I’d love to see more of it. Simulation and arcade style. But you’re right, we need one with a robust, slow paced progression system. I remember really enjoying unlocking everything in NFS Porsche Unleashed, going through the eras, starting slow but getting slowly faster. Then NFS Underground 2 came out and still stands alone as the best example of racing progression by a large margin. Then it’s like the gameplay design has been going further back in time since then. I am using the same simple progression mechanics in new racers that I used in Sega GT 2002, and they were old then.
As to why, it feels like they don’t have AAA budgets anymore. The high quality simulator games like the Dirt series have to spend their whole wad getting the physics and performance right, there’s not much left for anything else, so it’s just menus and a simple money system. That’s just my guess, it could just be they need to hire a couple RPG designers among the gear head ones.