Saturday, March 18th 2023
Assetto Corsa Sequel in Active Development, Financial Report Indicates Spring 2024 Launch Window
According to details fished out of an extensive Digital Bros. 2022-2023 financial report, Assetto Corsa 2 is set for a Spring 2024 launch. Developer Kunos Simulazioni and publisher 505 Games confirmed back in 2021 that the long running Assetto Corsa racing-sim series would be receiving sequel treatment. It seems that the owners of the publishing and development groups are keen to capitalize on Assetto Corsa-series sales figures reaching 28 million copies, as of late December 2022, which generated $112 million in revenue.
Fans of Assetto Corsa will be eagerly anticipating the release window of March to June 2024 - the previous entry in the series, Competizione, was not intended as a full sequel when it launched in 2018, via an early-access program. Content updates have been frequent and appreciated by the fan base, but with the power of PC and console hardware increasing over the past half decade, expectations of graphical fidelity have changed for racing simulators.The engineering team has chosen to develop their own custom game engine for the sequel, which harks back to the original title's usage of proprietary code, 95% of which was programmed by one individual. Kunos Simulazioni went third-party with Assetto Corsa Competizione, which was built on Epic's Unreal Engine 4.
Marco Massarutto, co-founder of the studio, explained the decision to not upgrade to UE5 (in a podcast interview from 2022): "It will not be using the latest Unreal Engine 5, with Kunos reverting to type with something custom for the project. We are developing new technology for the AC2 engine. We will not use Unreal because we need greater flexibility. Unreal Engine is a terrific technology and I think that games like Ride 4, Moto GP or Assetto Corsa Competizione have proven to be great games. But the way we are used to working…we like to think of ourselves as a technology provider and not just a gaming developer. We like to work even more on our technology because this allows us to create the specific tools and features that we need for a racing simulation. We are very happy about what we did with Competizione and Epic Games. But now we are developing new technology in order to fit better with our needs."A full list of launch platforms has not been confirmed by the developer or publisher, but it can be safely assumed that PC will be the primary one. Sales figures for current and last generation versions of existing Assetto Corsa titles have been strong, so it is highly likely that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S support is in the pipeline.
Sources:
MauroNL Indusry Analyst, Digital Bros IR, Traxion GG Transcript
Fans of Assetto Corsa will be eagerly anticipating the release window of March to June 2024 - the previous entry in the series, Competizione, was not intended as a full sequel when it launched in 2018, via an early-access program. Content updates have been frequent and appreciated by the fan base, but with the power of PC and console hardware increasing over the past half decade, expectations of graphical fidelity have changed for racing simulators.The engineering team has chosen to develop their own custom game engine for the sequel, which harks back to the original title's usage of proprietary code, 95% of which was programmed by one individual. Kunos Simulazioni went third-party with Assetto Corsa Competizione, which was built on Epic's Unreal Engine 4.
Marco Massarutto, co-founder of the studio, explained the decision to not upgrade to UE5 (in a podcast interview from 2022): "It will not be using the latest Unreal Engine 5, with Kunos reverting to type with something custom for the project. We are developing new technology for the AC2 engine. We will not use Unreal because we need greater flexibility. Unreal Engine is a terrific technology and I think that games like Ride 4, Moto GP or Assetto Corsa Competizione have proven to be great games. But the way we are used to working…we like to think of ourselves as a technology provider and not just a gaming developer. We like to work even more on our technology because this allows us to create the specific tools and features that we need for a racing simulation. We are very happy about what we did with Competizione and Epic Games. But now we are developing new technology in order to fit better with our needs."A full list of launch platforms has not been confirmed by the developer or publisher, but it can be safely assumed that PC will be the primary one. Sales figures for current and last generation versions of existing Assetto Corsa titles have been strong, so it is highly likely that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S support is in the pipeline.
13 Comments on Assetto Corsa Sequel in Active Development, Financial Report Indicates Spring 2024 Launch Window
Can somebody remind me who their coders was? Stefano something I think...