Why Assetto Corsa Competizione NOT Being Assetto Corsa 2 is a GOOD Thing
Assetto Corsa Competizione is one of the very exciting titles of 2018, but I think there's a chance more exciting things coming soon!
Assetto Corsa Competizione is going to be one of the highlights of 2018 for Sim Racing, with many Sim Racers eagerly awaiting their first opportunity to get their hands on Kunos Simulazioni’s upcoming Sim. While there is plenty of excitement for the upcoming title, theAssetto Corsa Competizione is going to be one of the highlights of 2018 for Sim Racing, with many Sim Racers eagerly awaiting their first opportunity to get their hands on Kunos Simulazioni’s upcoming Sim. While there is plenty of excitement for the upcoming title, there are some members in the Sim Racing community that are disappointed that this is not going to be a full-fledged sequel to Assetto Corsa with the full feature set, and modding capabilities of the predecessor. However, I think that Kunos Simulazioni going off track and doing an “Off-Shoot” title is actually a GOOD thing. re are still many questions that need to be answered. One that is first and foremost is “Is Assetto Corsa Competizione going to take the place of ‘Assetto Corsa 2’?” I think, based off of past experiences, Assetto Corsa Competizione is NOT going to be a full sequel, and Assetto Corsa 2 will likely be coming in a couple years, maybe around 2020 or 2021.
My main guess is that we will likely see Assetto Corsa 2 sooner rather than later, and it will likely adopt a lot of elements from ACC. If I was a betting man, I would think that Assetto Corsa 2 would be announced around 2020, and would have a release around 2021, or 2022. However, Kunos focusing on a more specialized title is likely the smarter move for the time being.
If you think about the recent developments regarding Kunos Simulazioni, with them being recently bought by Digital Bros, it would make sense for their new owners to plan a developer’s path for multiples titles in the future. I believe that Digital Bros would not have bought Kunos to plan out only ONE title in the future. They’d likely already have two titles planned for Kunos, and Competizione would be the first title to come from this new relationship.
Between Netkar Pro and Assetto Corsa, Kunos Simulazioni released Ferrari Virtual Academy, in a collaboration with Ferrari
One common trend we have been seeing with the video game industry as a whole is the “Stop-Gap” title, or alternating back and forth between titles in the series. For example, Forza has both the main installments, and the Horizon offshoot titles, which allow for people to experience Forza on a near-yearly basis. Gran Turismo also had a trend of releasing “Prologues” between major numbered installments, to help alleviate the wait for the main installations.
There are a few reasons why I believe that Kunos could be adopting this mentality for Assetto Corsa Competizione. The main reason? This is something that they have actually done before. In between NetKar Pro and Assetto Corsa, Kunos teamed up with Ferrari, and released Ferrari Virtual Academy, which served as a tech demo of sorts for the upcoming engine they had in development. In addition, the release of Ferrari Virtual Academy ALSO came with an Assetto Corsa tech demo, which was an early sneak peek of their upcoming title.
With Assetto Corsa Competizione, we are seeing a migration to a new engine, in the form of Unreal Engine 4. While early visual impressions are very positive, there is still no precedence in the way of a racing simulation title of this caliber utilizing Unreal Engine. Kunos will be upgrading their physics from Assetto Corsa and implementing it in Competizione, but still “Rebuilding a title from almost ‘scratch’ is still a heavy duty affair”.
I think it would be perfectly within reason to have Kunos release a smaller title, to be able to focus on taking advantage of the game engine, and also focus adding new features, such as the day to night transitions, weather, and driver swaps. Being able to focus on a more specialized demographic will allow them to refine the racing experience, and create a solid template that can be transferred into future titles.
Speaking of Future Titles, that is admittedly an interesting toss-up. The future of the Assetto Corsa series is no longer solely determined by Kunos, but now it is also in the Hands of Digital Bros. Since Kunos Simulazioni is technically now a subsidiary of Digital Bros, that creates an interesting dilemma. If Assetto Corsa Competizione does poorly, then that could spell trouble for the future of the Assetto Corsa franchise. On the other end of the coin, if Competizione does well, that could lead to Digital Bros granting a larger budget for Assetto Corsa 2, and bringing on more people for development.
If Assetto Corsa Competizione does well, and I don’t really see any reason why it WOULDN’T, that could open up the window to a lot more opportunities with Assetto Corsa 2. We know Assetto Corsa Competizione will feature support for endurance races and driver swaps. Imagine if Kunos could get the license for Le Mans in Assetto Corsa 2 You could simulate a 24 Hours of Le Mans event, complete with day/night transitions AND weather. Now THAT would be exciting!
Now again, this is just speculation on my end, and I could be wrong. For all we know, Kunos Simulazioni could just add great post-release content, like Le Mans, DTM, and other series to add to the previously established GT3 content. However, in my opinion, it would make more sense logically for Kunos to focus on developing the specialized title, and then focus on a more grand Assetto Corsa 2 in the future.
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