What's happened best racing games on PC? Whether it's mastering the dirt tracks in Dirt Rally 2.0 or the stunning Mexico in Forza Horizon 5, here are the best racing games.
Choosing the best racing games on PC is no easy task. This genre isn't just about graphical clarity and stunning sound design - although both certainly help - but also how to get you involved in the action as if you were in the driver's seat, straining your eyes as the tarmac whizzes past at a speed of 240 km/h. From mastering the timing for the perfect gear shift to squeezing the reverse gear for a great drift, quality racing game is what you need.
Here is a list of the best racing games on PC:
Don’t ask: “How could you forget about Grand Prix Legends! Where is Jeff Crammond?! When will versions of these games appear on Steam or GOG, we'll be first in line to play them again... and inevitably find that they're not as well-preserved as we hoped. So for those of you who just want to start the engine of a great racing game, whether it's a challenging sim or an arcade thriller, we've got some rampant PC racing games for you.
Forza Horizon 5
Playground Games' latest open-world arcade racer leaves the British Isles behind and takes the party to Mexico. The Forza Horizon 5 map is 50% larger than the British Horizon 4 and is filled with open desert roads, quaint Mexican towns and breathtaking canyons. Building on the stunning seasonal effects of previous games that bring the environment to life, in Horizon 5 you'll face hurricanes that can whip up ferocious winds in the blink of an eye.
Other than the new weather, not much has changed in the game, but that's by no means a bad thing as Playground Games has really mastered the racing game format. You can compete in traditional races, co-op campaigns, stunt jumps, seasonal championships and endurance tests in a variety of fast and stylish vehicles - from modified dune buggies and pickup trucks to unique hypercars.
The game has a lot of content that will keep you coming back; as the game's seasons change every week, new events appear next to them to complete, earning redemption points that can be redeemed for exclusive cars.
Dirt Rally 2
If you don't know pacenotes from drivehaft, Dirty Rally 2.0 is not the racing game you need. If you want the fun of regular driving, just getting from point A to point B a little faster than usual, try Dirt 4. In Rally 2.0, your co-driver will bombard you with instructions, numbers and directions, and if you fail to cope with the varied roads and turns, you'll crash into a tree before you know it.
You will be doing lot Crashes: Codemasters' driving game doesn't come with a tutorial this time - you'll only learn through successive trips to the hospital. The game also lacks a procedural generation system for Your Stage tracks. Instead, each race is painstakingly handcrafted, inviting dedicated fans to remember every nasty twist. This is the only way to master Dirt Rally 2.0, and if you don't embrace its obsessive and idiosyncratic vision, you'll finish last.
shift 2
Shift 2 is perhaps the best compromise between realism and accessibility of any game on this list. It's not just the handling of the car - formidable but capable - but also the way the game consistently thinks through what players need to achieve at a high level. Instead of fixing your eyes on the hood or asking you to buy a TrackIR so you can turn your head, Shift 2 has a dynamic view that subtly changes depending on the context.
As you approach the gentle right turn, your view shifts slightly as the driver avatar is looking directly at the apex. In a sharper turn, the view shifts a little to give you the feeling that you are entering a corner, but it is not at all disorienting. It looks natural.
Thoughtfulness extends even to the depth of field. It's an overused visual effect, but in Shift 2 it's used to emphasize where your attention should be. When someone quickly approaches you on your tail, objects in the distance become a little more blurry, while your mirrors become razor-sharp. When you move in heavy traffic, your cockpit becomes blurry while the cars around you are in focus. It sounds unusual, but it all feels as natural as driving a car in real life. The Shift 2 really aims to convey the pleasure and achievement of driving, and it succeeds admirably.
art of rally
An isometric racing game doesn't sound like much of a success - unless it's Micro Machines - but Art of Rally is perhaps the most charming racing game ever. It combines a stylized, minimalist art style with rally cars from the 1960s, all the way up to the infamous Group B of the 80s.
Travel through the open world hunting for collectibles or go through typical rally stages, all in stunning colorful environments. The soundtrack is just right too: soft, low-pitched melodies accompany you on your journey through countries such as Finland, Germany, and Kenya. Perhaps the least typical racing game on this list, but certainly the most unique.
Project Cars 2
Real cars, as you may have noticed, rarely skid around a corner once you decide to mix steering and acceleration. In fact, they corner quite well - almost as if an engineer thought about this problem during the design process. The powerful cars in Project Cars 2, while certainly more prone to kick back, are even better at cornering. Drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini around the track (as we've done on numerous occasions) and you'll likely spend more time having fun than lamenting the lack of a rewind button in real life.
The studio has made a host of other changes to the sequel, expanding the car selection to include a greater variety of vehicles and creating a career mode that feels less weird without sacrificing the appealing freedom of choice that was built into the previous game. There's even half-decent AI to compete with if online play isn't your thing. But the most impressive update is the game's amazing weather system, which calculates a dizzying number of factors relating to the physical properties of materials and surfaces, water accumulation and runoff to produce the best array of weather effects - and wet weather driving - we've ever encountered in a racing game. games.
Wreckfest
In Wreckfest, your goal is usually cross the line first, but a clean race isn't the only way to do it. Crashing into your rivals to reduce their cars' health is an effective way to win, or if you trust your driving skill, you can try to outrun all the other racers.
The game also has elimination modes that require you to be the last car standing and a huge number of cars to choose from. With an impressively accurate damage model and the ability to pit school buses against golf buggies and everything in between, grab your friends and hop on the net for some of the funniest racing moments a video game can have.
TrackMania 2: Canyon
Any veteran of the genre will tell you that good track design is an integral part of any quality racing game. And this is an area where TrackMania 2: Canyon really has a winning, unique selling point. While most games are all about hairpin turns, power camber, or high-speed straightaways, TrackMania 2: Canyon takes on a terrifying, Hot Wheels-inspired sense of the tracks. Steep turns, incredible jumps and floating platforms that hold onto physics with two fingers are what sets the TrackMania series apart from other arcade racing games.
GRID Legends
The GRID series has gone through many iterations, but the latest game's single-player mode is inspired by Netflix's Drive to Survive series, which is a documentary drama about Formula 1. It features real-life interviews with fictional characters and racing scenarios that pit you against multiple opponents as you try to make a name for yourself in motorsport.
Plenty of multiplayer modes are also on offer, and the drop-in-drop-out feature means you can take on the AI racers in real-life races whenever you please. It's not a racing sim, it leans more towards the arcade style, but you can have a lot of fun racing in it.
Driver: SF
Every arcade racing game should be as cool as this game. If Steve McQueen were digitized and turned into a video game, he would be Driver: San Francisco.
Driver: SF incorporates cars and influences from various eras and goes with everything in a 70s style. She loves American muscle, roaring engines, screeching tires, and the incredibly steep hills and winding roads of San Francisco. It has possibly the best soundtrack of any racing game and one of the best variety of events.
This game also has one of the most original ideas in the genre. Instead of being tied to one car, you can freely change to any other on the road at the touch of a button. So, in many races, the car you finish in may not be the one you started in, and in car chases you will quickly learn how to teleport through traffic in order to arrange various car accidents, just to play a trick on your opponents.
F1 22
F1 22 is the latest in a long line of official Formula 1 games, and while it's still being developed by racing game veterans Codemasters, it's now published by EA, prompting the removal of the word "20" from the game's title.
While the addition of supercars and F1 Life cosmetics didn't go over well with fans, wheel-to-wheel racing is better than ever thanks to new realistic car models. For the first time, tire temperatures also mimic real-life performance, making it much more difficult to achieve a perfect track start if you haven't successfully warmed up your tires during your setup lap.
You've got the familiar single-player career mode, time trials and online multiplayer, plus the two-player co-op career mode new to F1 2021. New content added regularly, such as one-off logos for McLaren and Alpine, the entire F2 season including all drivers, new MyTeam icons such as Mika Hakkinen, and new in-game tracks such as the Shanghai International Circuit. If you want to get behind the wheel of the world's fastest motorsport, F1 22 is the game you need.
Race: Injection
It's impossible to make a list of great racing simulators without including something from SimBin. Although the studio seemed to have lost its way a bit with the release of the questionable free-to-play game RaceRoom Racing Experience, SimBin was the racing sim studio royalty of the mid-2000s. Race: Injection is their game that combines almost everything they achieved in the GTR and Race 07 series.
These are tough games, but the modified World Touring Car Cup sedans should ease your transition into serious racing. Even a racing Honda Accord is still a Honda Accord, and the slightly more manageable speed and difficulty of the WTCC is a great place to explore the tracks and SimBin's excellent physics.
But there are muscle cars, endurance cars, and open-wheel racers in this pack, all brilliantly recreated and offering unique driving challenges. For the money, you probably won't find anything better than Race: Injection for racing sims.
Unfortunately, the Race series has long been outdated, even when Injection was released, and it's impossible to hide the old technology it's built on. However, don't let flat lighting and dull graphics fool you. A few minutes of driving these machines, especially if you have a quality steering wheel with feedback, and you will not even notice their outdated look.
Assetto Corsa Competizione
This racing simulator will appeal to dedicated fans of the genre and at the same time surpasses the original Assetto Corsa in almost every aspect - and for this there is a very high bar to overcome. It took Competizione a while to get through the turmoil of Early Access, but with version 1.0 out, there are only a few bugs left to iron out.
iRacing
OK it's all over Now. Grand pub racing simulators. iRacing blurs the line between play and work. The cars and tracks are recreated with fanatical attention to detail, and the racing league rules are as strict as you'll find in any racing club or track in the world. This is a racing game for those who want the real thing and are willing to put in hours of practice. This may be the pinnacle of Papyrus legend David Kaemmer's career. For those of us who started playing IndyCar and Grand Prix Legends, this name alone is enough.
That's it, the best racing games on PC. If all this fast-paced action makes you anxious and impatient, why not double that feeling by checking out the best upcoming PC games. Perhaps you want to slow down and focus on more intellectual pursuits? In this case, read about the best strategy games on pc.
In the meantime, immerse yourself in the speed sensations above. It turns out that virtual driving is much more interesting than trying to parallel park a used Skoda. Who would have thought?
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