In a bit of a surprise, PCars3 is coming... And soon. It was just announced officially a couple days ago for a Summer 2020 release on current gen consoles.
Here's some of the highlights:
- 200 cars
- 140 tracks
- Car customization
- Revamped single player campaign
- New pad controls for people without a wheel
- New tire physics
- Ability to upgrade car performance with parts and packages (think older Gran Turismo)
- Curated community / multiplayer events
- Skill based matchmaking for online races
The trailer:
https://youtu.be/YkiZijDDG_Y
Official website:
https://www.projectcarsgame.com/three/
I'm very interested to see what comes from the release. One of the challenges we've had with our series is the uncompetitive nature of some of the cars in a class. Where one car would be so dominant that everyone would have to drive the same car to have a fighting chance. Maybe some of the upgrades will help to balance that out some.
I'd also like some better league options: penalty weight, reverse grids, etc.
T.J.
MegaDork
6/5/20 8:55 a.m.
I'm not enthused that they added a bunch of GT type things. Looks like you have to earn experience to buy cars then spend more to upgrade them. (This may only apply to single player career mode though, and maybe all cars and tracks are available for multiplayer).
Driving around trying to collect perfect corners or unlocking achievements for drafting and passing seem silly to me, but if they are just in single player career mode or can be turned off, then that might be ok.
It says 200 cars, but is there a car list out yet? All I have seen in various youtube videos so far are road cars and GT3 cars. Hopefully the GT3 cars are not the top of the heap. The wide variety of cars is one of my favorite things about PC2 and that you don't have to spend hours and hours grinding away versus AI to earn enough money to buy the good cars. Also, hopefully the road cars don't drive like they do in PC2 because in general they are terrible to drive in PC2.
Assuming I have found a job by the time this is released I will buy it to check it out. I'll say I am cautiously optimistic for this one. I am way more excited to play ACC than PC3 at this point, but you never know until you try them.
It's looking like this is more off an enhancement of the current version rather than a remake.
Still a bit concerned we will have to "earn" cars to use them (like GT)
The potential is there. Here is hoping they bring a better tire model to the came so as to make it more friendly to the casual user. I would rather race with more people with a little less realism
One thing to keep in mind. IF they do go with the "you need to buy the car to use it model" (I certainly hope note), it is VERY important to keep an ear out for cheats when it comes out! I was able to do this for GT5 and ended up with no issues buying cars, but some did not and we where never able to use the 20 million cars in any races. I missed it for GTS. It's not a huge deal since most of the 20 mill cars are those silly hyper cars, but there are some very nice older cars also (e.g. Ferrari 250 GTO)
In reply to aircooled :
Ian Bell said that they would not limit anyone from jumping into the deep end. Owning cars is about "tweaking" them and that you can borrow a car to participate in any event.
My assumption is tweaking means graphical customization, wheels, paint, performance parts, etc.
ProDarwin said:
No crossplay I presume?
Not mentioned yet, but that would be awesome.
Is crossplay available for ANY PS or XBox game?
aircooled said:
Is crossplay available for ANY PS or XBox game?
Dirt Rally 2.0 - see the thread on here about it.
Granted, its not wheel to wheel, but its a ton of fun.
T.J.
MegaDork
6/5/20 6:22 p.m.
In reply to ProDarwin :
I have Dirt Rally, but not 2.0. Might have to get that one.
This is happening just in time. I have been pondering going back and focusing on GT more as PC2 while excellent seems to have run its course.
If it was not for the group here on GRM I probably would have jumped back as the number racing on GT I still very large. I regularly see 10-20 of my PS "friends" on line every night playing GT.
T.J.
MegaDork
6/6/20 7:16 p.m.
In reply to dean1484 :
I think ACC will be the new 'it' game for consoles for folks who want some sort of realism in their racing games. PC3 looks more and more like a mess the more I see of it.
Cars have a PIR rating, which is basically a single number that indicates the overall performance of that car, averaged out from the balance of their raw power, tyres, bodywork, weight reduction, and everything else. You can spend in-game credits, earned through races, to upgrade any of these parts, and as you upgrade individual cars further and further, that car will be usable in higher-level races. It's possible, for instance, to upgrade a basic Honda Civic Type R into the hyper-car class of vehicle, if you really wanted to keep it going. Different races and events will require cars of a certain class, but you have the ability to rent a vehicle if you don't own a suitable one.
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/06/project-cars-3-reveal-pc-ps4-xbox-one/amp
That same article also says that they did away with Karts. That means their tracks are gone as well. We know that there are at least 2 new tracks, but I think we may be in for more.
8 minutes of beta footage...
BradLTL said:
8 minutes of beta footage...
Wow that looks super arcadey
If you watch the steering wheel and listen to the tire sounds in some of the above shots I think you can still see some pretty non-arcadey stuff. It looks very much like a wheel is being used (unless there is some pretty sophisticated assists going on). Lots of sawing of the wheel, evidence of serious understeer and power oversteer in some of the cars.
The tires sounds are interesting. The seem to convey useful information but does seem to omit cornering sounds and only seem to convey loss of grip. I will have to listen what PC2 does, but having a bit unrealistically loud tire sounds can be useful to convey dynamics you cannot feel.
T.J.
MegaDork
6/8/20 10:44 a.m.
In the video I posted above, one of SMS guys says that the new tracks include Interlagos and two fictional tracks. One is a street circuit in Shanghai and the other is a drive through the Italian contry side in Tuscany. Interlagos should be fun. No way to know about the made up tracks until trying them out.
Trying to be all things to all people makes sense from the developer's point of view because if it does not appeal to casual gamers then the sales are limited, but there is a reason that the cliche 'jack of all trades, master of none' exists. I'm still a bit worried about this one.
They did say all those floating balloons for braking points, turn in points and apexes can be turned off, so there is that.
This is some useful information:
https://www.ign.com/articles/project-cars-3-promises-to-be-more-democratic-welcoming-supportive
Basically: You only need to "own" a car if you want to do customizations or mods.
“In the custom event mode all the cars and tracks are available straight away in that mode,” added Joe Barron, marketing and esports manager for Project CARS 3. “So if you’re more on the hardcore end of the scale and the first thing you want to do is turn every assist off and go and race in a thunderstorm in the middle of the night in your prototype or something like that, you don’t have to play through hours of career mode to get there if you want to jump straight into a custom event.”
“And likewise in multiplayer as well; everything is available straight away in multiplayer. The difference is, in the multiplayer side of things, if you don’t own the right car for a specific multiplayer event you can borrow one from the game for that multiplayer event. The only difference there is that you can’t customise or upgrade your car if you’re borrowing it for a one-off event, whereas if it’s in your garage you can do all the tweaking.”
T.J.
MegaDork
6/8/20 10:49 a.m.
Some of the gimmicks like Rivals mode seem silly. I'd rather see just how fast the aliens are and not some dumbed down leaderboard made up only of others in my bracket. What is the incentive to be the best in a given bracket if at the end of the month you get 'promoted' to the next bracket and then are the slowest?
I too was wondering about the tire sounds in the trailers. I wish there was some footage from cockpit view of someone trying to drive around a track quickly and not just trying to drift.
Seems like they are keeping the PC2 cars and tracks and adding 40 new cars some from new manufacturers.
BradLTL
SuperDork
6/8/20 11:24 a.m.
The thing that was interesting to me in the IGN article was that there are 10 classes of cars. That's significantly less that PC2, but maybe they will be more balanced.
