There’s plenty for players to get their collective teeth into with the latest v0.2 update to Assetto Corsa EVO’s Early Access period today, but it also brings a look at an updated roadmap for the pre-launch plans – and it’s not entirely good news.
We’ve been alert to a change in the Early Access plans since Kunos Simulazioni published a video in mid-April revealing what would be coming next for the title, in which studio head Marco Massarutto acknowledged some of the issues and misconceptions thus far and detailed a change of tack.
That came with the promise of more content than originally planned in the second EA update — which we’re seeing today with the addition of Donington Park alongside the expected Circuit of the Americas — but also some notes that the roadmap as a whole would change.
The first of those changes was announced within the video, as Massarutto noted that modding support would be brought forward from what had been planned as a post-launch feature, after the v1.0 release, to within the Early Access period. Indeed the updated roadmap now shows modding tools as part of the sixth, of now eight, EA updates.
There’s some other good news too. The next update is now planned to include two further tracks — Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, and Red Bull Ring — as well as nine new vehicles, and tweaks to the tire model, AI opponents, and VR support.
However as you’ll spot from the image above, which is presented to you when you log into the update, the highly anticipated Eifel free roam mode has been bumped back from its original spot in the fourth release (of what was six) to what’s now the very last pre-launch eighth release.
Kunos had stated that the first appearance of the free roam map would be in the summer, as a smaller area initially to be expanded to the full-sized, 600 square-mile map, presumably in the remaining two updates. However, given the new position in the schedule and the fact that it’s taken four months between the first two releases already, it would suggest that a summer release for this mode is now unlikely.
While there’s also some clear progression of the other releases, there’s some further detail changes on the roadmap. Firstly, the planned content drops have now disappeared — though we assume they’ve been absorbed into the rearranged Early Access releases.
More significantly though, the launch window has been deleted from the map. January’s roadmap had the v1.0 marked for “Fall 2025”, and this label is obviously missing in the latest version. Quite what that means will be the source of much speculation over the coming months, but let’s hope it’s not signs of a further delay.
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