Project Motor Racing gets release date and career showcase

One of the odd games I’m most excited for in the backend of this year is easily GIANTS Software and Straight4 Studios’ upcoming racing game. I mean, GIANTS have a history of making tractors, but something tells me that Project Motor Racing won’t feature the Alpine F1 car. Announced only at the back end of April, the Project Motor Racing focus is more on GT and Endurance/prototype racing style cars, with the latest trailer showcasing how you’ll go racing.

This new trailer not only gave us the release date of the upcoming racing title, but we got a short look at what to expect in the single-player career mode. This is what the press release had to say on the reveal and the announcement: “Project Motor Racing, the ultra-authentic racing sim from publisher GIANTS Software and developer Straight4 Studios, will hit the track on November 25th. Announcing the release date for PC and consoles, the joint genre leaders also start pre-orders alongside new impressions and information, first and foremost, the confirmation of full-fledged mod support.” As always, avoid pre-orders unless you get something physical and you know more.

The trailer itself is about hammering home one strong point: money. Not just Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey’s favorite thing, however, it is what allows you to go racing every weekend across the globe in different one-off races and even in championships. That’s the big difference between Project Motor Racing and everything else: all cars and tracks will be open from the word go. You just need to figure out what you can afford both on and off the track. A dive bomb into T1 or a late lunge that is 50/50, you need to be confident in those moves or suffer the price of damage.

The trailer notes how this all works, particularly whether you’ll start as a journeyman building up prize money to become a racing legend, or if you’re running a global operation. You’ll also be able to decide between three places where you’ll set up your home base, which will result in different tracks available to you without the hefty price tag of travel, event entry, and even the price of cars themselves. Starting in either North America, Europe, or Asia, there are a variety of challenges with each location you base yourself in.

Another major sticking point of the trailer itself was the sponsorship model that your team will work with. There are supposedly eight different styles with different parameters that result in more money for you, for example, the “Rolling Billboard” model in the trailer states: “A traditional sponsorship arrangement – you’re paid a flat amount per race, and that amount is based on the prestige of the car you’re racing. Your performance doesn’t matter with this model; you are a rolling billboard and nothing more. This is the safest sponsorship model for racers looking for a predictable influx of cash.”

The press release is rather light on details when it comes to the career mode, though it does go on to note: “[…] The team at Straight4 aims for a full-throttle feature-set to satisfy the most demanding sim racers, whether they prefer a challenging Single Player Career Mode or adrenaline-boosted Online Racing. ‘The driving physics are key, of course, but the sim is built around racing,” says Straight4’s Game Design Director, Austin Ogonoski.

In Project Motor Racing’s Single Player Career Mode, racers will need to negotiate their way through the cutthroat world of pro-motorsports, where the pressure not only to perform but to survive from one race to the next is key. Will they risk their car for a shot at glory, or will they play it safe and race another day?”

Austin Ogonoski also goes on to add, “We wanted to capture the harsh reality of pro motorsport: Budgets. Repairs. Sponsors. Failed overtakes that don’t just wreck your car but your whole season… Your career in Project Motor Racing is motorsport with consequences.” Given the number of racing games that push for authenticity, it will be interesting when Project Motor Racing comes out and the usual suspects bemoan that it isn’t a “real sim racer” because it isn’t Assetto Corsa.

Unlike the trailer, though, the press release went into a bit more detail on the modding. Or as much as GIANTs is willing to allow this far out from launch, this is what the press release said: “With the launch announcement comes the exciting news of premier-level modding within the world of racing simulation: Thanks to the proven GIANTS Engine, the team confirms full mod support from day one, across all platforms[.]

Using the official GIANTS Editor, all user-generated content can be submitted through the in-game UGC Portal, where every mod is tested by the developers before being made available for download. ‘Project Motor Racing taps into the same powerhouse modding ecosystem as Farming Simulator,‘ says Boris Stefan, CSO & Head of Publishing at GIANTS Software. ‘Racing modders will be able to tweak, tune, and transform their experience however they like.’

With over 4.5 billion downloads via the existing ModHub and a decade-long reputation for fostering creative communities, GIANTS Software brings its [unrivaled] modding heritage to the racing world, allowing racers to supercharge their experience in Project Motor Racing through user-generated content.“

I’m excited to see more and hopefully get hands-on with Project Motor Racing this November when it releases on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Set to release November 25th, hopefully, we’ll get more detail on the release and what to expect over the next couple of months leading up to that date. Look, I’m not going to say you can’t pre-order, but the “bonus” is the GTE Decade Pack, which, according to the announcement press release, “features 7 extreme examples of high-performance cars racing in one of the most thrilling and competitive classes in GT racing history.” Hold on while I don’t care.