NASCAR fans, myself included, have had a mixed relationship with video games in recent years. There were good times, but more recently, less so. The last officially licensed game has — as I recently heard the term, in a session that included many of the most committed community members — become known by one name.
Voldemort. The game that shall not be named.
Four years later, NASCAR 25 brings America's top tier of stock car racing back to console, and soon after, PC. The most recent games, and their transgressions, are firmly in the past. This is an entirely new franchise built using expertise from the very best in the business at iRacing. And boy oh boy, NASCAR is back.
Starting a new NASCAR franchise from the very best foundations
The studio ultimately responsible for NASCAR 25 is familiar to fans who played previous games. Monster Games has previously worked on the NASCAR Heat franchise, albeit with a different publisher.
The studio's last effort was NASCAR Heat 4, a game which, on the whole, many of us enjoyed. From then on, things took a turn, but Monster Games is back working on NASCAR as part of iRacing Studios.
iRacing acquired Monster Games in 2022, and as such, the team working on NASCAR 25 has had some serious resources at their disposal. iRacing is widely accepted as the best sim-racing platform on the planet, and has been a close partner of NASCAR for many years.
What NASCAR 25 is, very much, is the beginning of something new. The team said as much during my preview session. It isn't a copy and paste of the iRacing sim. This is a pure NASCAR game built to leverage the license to its best, to be a fun experience for players of all skill levels, on controller or wheel and pedal.
But with iRacing at the helm, NASCAR 25 is being built not just to be a good NASCAR game. I think it has every chance to be one of the finest racing games of this generation.
While there's still not much to say about future content, it's been made very clear that the intention is to create the best possible foundation. A foundation upon which can be built the NASCAR experience they, and we, have always wanted.
iRacing's expertise will set NASCAR 25 apart
During my session, I saw a cross-section of everything NASCAR 25 has to offer. We were treated to three different types of race; a short track, a superspeedway, and a road course. As in reality, all three are very different types of racing, and very different types of car setup, behavior, and the driving style required.
While NASCAR 25 is not a copy and paste of the NASCAR elements of iRacing, it does have the benefit of some of the core elements which make the sim so good.
NASCAR 25 makes use of iRacing's laser scanned track data, for one. So the digital Daytona surface you're racing on in the game, is about as close as most of us will ever come to touching the real thing.
Likewise, iRacing employs real-life race engineers who worked for NASCAR teams in a previous life to help tune the cars and the physics. All of that goodness is baked into NASCAR 25, too.
Other than that, this is a bespoke experience, though. All the technical wizardry that sim racers on iRacing get to enjoy is there, but all of the assets on top are built by Monster Games specifically for NASCAR 25.
That means licensed cars, circuits, and drivers, and as an additional bonus the ARCA Menards series is also featured for the first time in an official NASCAR game.
I've only seen a work in progress build, but visually, it's looking pretty good. The car models are superb, the environments for the circuits I've seen, equally. But it's still being polished, so it's unfair to say much more than that at this point.
NASCAR 25 is shaping up to be a hell of a racing game
Even from a short preview session, I could probably talk about NASCAR 25 for hours. But I'll try to keep it brief.
This is shaping up to be one fantastic racing game.
iRacing Studios has done a phenomenal job, not only bringing the franchise to life, but in the attention to detail. I've already mentioned the track data and physics tuning that come from the simulator, but there are so many little details that really add to the experience.
For example, the spotter audio. There are two spotters in the game, TJ Majors and Josh Williams, and real world sounds from their in-race calls have been used to generate the spotter audio for the game. It's here where AI was deployed, too, to help produce different options for these calls, to reduce the monotony of hearing the same calls and same tones over and over.
The in-game AI racers also have a lot of flexibility to make the game as hard or as easy as you like. If you want as realistic an experience as possible, crank it all the way up, and you'll be racing for your life. But if you're a newcomer or a more casual player, you can turn it down and just have a good time.
The driver AI has also been tuned to behave in a realistic way. On a superspeedway, for example, the AI drivers will follow you if you jump out of line if it looks like you're faster. If it's slower than the other line, they won't.
They'll draft with you, too, and I'm actually surprised at how good the bump drafting seems to be in this game. I've never been more excited to pack race.
Car setups will, by default, be set towards tighter entry, with a raft of tweaks you can make to the setup to dial in how you want your car to feel. Tires also behave like they would in reality. If you get fresh rubber and the cars around you do not, you'll start carving through them with relative ease.
Coming October 14 on console
NASCAR 25 has been one of my most anticipated titles ever since I knew it was coming out this year. I've got a serious itch to scratch, and everything I've seen so far has only added to the hype.
It looks to be a perfect blend of a fun console racing experience and more serious sim racing title. All the gameplay I've experienced has been using a controller, and it's glorious.
It is, however, launching initially only on console on October 14. PC is set to follow fairly soon after, with the additional time being spent ensuring that the raft of hardware racing accessories on PC are well-supported by the game. PC launch through Steam is planned for November 11.
It's also a digital-only release, there are no physical copies on any platform. And if you opt for the gold edition, you'll get to play 72 hours before the October 14 release date. Drivers, start your engines!
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