Assetto Corsa EVO Early Access Discussion Thread

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Well, seeing how barebones the so-called career mode was, I am OK with the decision, but I do hope they improve the UI in general and make car customization enjoyable. In the foreseeable future my driving games will be GT7/FH6/AC EVO, and I'm covered.
 
This news is fine with me. Hopefully they can spend the time building the simulation rather than worrying about some fake economy and fake credits. Not sure why people would rather grind to buy stuff rather than just use the stuff in game to simulate the races openly. They said the Single Player experience will continue to grow. Hopefully that means we can have offline races with good AI at some point.
 
I think this is fantastic news. I assume that most people chose open rather than career mode, and that's why they're ditching career mode. I've always thought that most people don't want the chore-based grind of games like TC/FH/GT, but they put up with it to enjoy the parts of the game they do enjoy. Now Kunos is breaking the mold and saying "Hey, why force players to do that dull stuff to be able to do the fun stuff, why not let them spend ALL of their time playing the game doing the fun stuff.". I totally agree with them.
They already had the open mode where everything is unlocked, the point with a career mode is to have some kind of progression, no fun to have everything handed to you at once, cars will feel more special if you do the work and earn them.

Its the same in real life of you can just buy anything nothing will feel as special anymore. Something you have to earn will be more special.

This is a big step backwords.

Hopefully modders will be able to figure out the progression system and make it available for career mode for those that wants it,
 
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This will be another generic racing sim. Nothing about this game has been smooth. From their abysmal launch to new paid server garbage to being extremely pussyfooted when talking about mods (which is why AC was such a hit) and now cancelling one of the two big features. It has been disappointment after disappointment. Constant delays and extended silence don't help either.

I genuinely won't be surprised if the open world feature is heavily cut down too. Cancelling a major feature, one full year after you revealed and launched your game as an alpha is a sign of a disaster behind the scenes.
 
They already had the open mode where everything is unlocked, the point with a career mode is to have some kind of progression, no fun to have everything handed to you at once, cars will feel more special if you do the work and earn them.

Its the same in real life of you can just buy anything nothing will feel as special anymore. Something you have to earn will be more special.

This is a big step backwords.

Hopefully modders will be able to figure out the progression system and make it available for career mode for those that wants it,

Agreed, progression and a reason to actually play a game is something sorely missing from the racing sim genre.

All hopes fall to Automobilista 2 and it's impending career mode and PMR to improve dramatically.
 
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Agreed, progression and a reason to actually play a game is something sorely missing from the racing sim genre.

All hopes fall to Automobilista 2 and it's impending career mode and PMR to improve dramatically.
The proplem for me with ams2 is that it dosent have car tuning or customize options. Which is features evo going to have but it not going to mean much if their is no progression, modders could possibly sort it out hopefully.


This will be another generic racing sim. Nothing about this game has been smooth. From their abysmal launch to new paid server garbage to being extremely pussyfooted when talking about mods (which is why AC was such a hit) and now cancelling one of the two big features. It has been disappointment after disappointment. Constant delays and extended silence don't help either.

I genuinely won't be surprised if the open world feature is heavily cut down too. Cancelling a major feature, one full year after you revealed and launched your game as an alpha is a sign of a disaster behind the scenes.


Not going to take anything away from kunos as how the open world map look so far but with the way it might work could be really disaapointing. And with no progression it might take all fun out of it.
 
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You don't see 99% of the people complaining in here in the Assetto Corsa PC Mods General Discussion thread that as of today has 5078 pages in it of people who are perfectly happy without any economy or career mode on an 11 year old platform. A good number of the people in here don't even own AC Evo nor have the means without a PC at all.

You were hoping for them to do something outside their wheelhouse. Something to configure to your prior experiences with other titles mainly on consoles. That isn't needed now. How about they continue on the baseline of the simulation and not waste time adding each piece of content to an empty career just yet? How about they come to that later when there's a full platform to work with?
To those that don't know, AC(1) already has tons of open world content. In fact you can easily have 2TB worth of AC content and open worlds.
You can check out this if you didn't know about it. The amount of content in this is amazing let alone all the other clubs and user created content throughout the community.

Early Access AC Evo has only been out for one full year. Does anyone remember AC1? Does anyone remember ACC? Same thing, different title, different year. AC Evo will be fine and Kunos does good work.
 
They already had the open mode where everything is unlocked, the point with a career mode is to have some kind of progression, no fun to have everything handed to you at once, cars will feel more special if you do the work and earn them.
The game started off with only the career mode. People complained so they added open mode and a choice between the two. Do you think they'd have ditched career mode if lots of people were choosing it in preference to open mode?

If they'd kept the career mode, open mode would have continued to be as bad as it is now, but why this is such fantastic news is that they are using the dev time they're freeing up to create the progression in open mode instead. For example, we have hot stints, but no online leaderboards, adding online leaderboards for those will be a big improvement, and for me, improving my leaderboard position as I practice is progression, but it's progression via challenge rather than simply grinding dull chores.
 
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Kunos put out an update on their Discord today, and it's not good news if you wanted EVO to be more than a sandbox+online racing.

View attachment 1511010

This saddens me, I can't lie. Why do sim racing game developers so consistently treat the "game" part of "sim racing game" as if it's anathema to them? Especially this one, EVO had all the ingredients to build a great career from, but nope, "competitive features" rule the day yet again...
"...but it allows us to focus on building a clearer, more authentic experience that better reflects what our community values and supports the long-term vision of the game"

It's like Kunos didn't even want to do it, but hey, it wasn't one of their selling points right?


“the formula of choose a car, choose a track, hot lap, race, setup, is absolutely great and good for a lot of people but possibly in 2024-25 will [not] be enough any more” — Massarutto explained that one of the goals for ACE was to make an engaging career mode for car lovers:


“We want to create not just a career but something that actually is the RPG of the petrolheads. All of us we are car enthusiasts: we love cars, we love driving, some of them like to collect diecast models or real cars, they want to drive on track, on road, they want to tune and customize their car.”
oh..

The simracing elitists have won once again
 
Kunos put out an update on their Discord today, and it's not good news if you wanted EVO to be more than a sandbox+online racing.

View attachment 1511010

This saddens me, I can't lie. Why do sim racing game developers so consistently treat the "game" part of "sim racing game" as if it's anathema to them? Especially this one, EVO had all the ingredients to build a great career from, but nope, "competitive features" rule the day yet again...
This is dissaponting. I was hoping that with mods this game could have had an incredible career mode. I'm glad I didn't buy into the early access on that basis. I can sandbox the original AC. We are really lacking a high quality Gran Turismo rival, especially one on PC at the moment, and have done for some time now.
 
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I'm not disappointed with their choice.

I wanted an Assetto Corsa 1 with better FFB and good feel for stock cars, and it excels in these areas.

It's still a small studio, and as someone who owns absolutely every PC sim, I know it's already complicated to offer good physics and good FFB...

Luckily, Assetto Evo offers something incredible for early access, and that's what players wanted.
It's Assetto Corsa 1, but better.

Yes, there's a ****storm, but I'm confident about the future of the game, unless they screw up with the mods.
They should focus on the basics first, i.e. the physics engine, FFB, sounds, and good optimization.
XP and money are clearly not what keeps players coming back for years on PC, as we saw with AC 1.
 
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The game started off with only the career mode. People complained so they added open mode and a choice between the two. Do you think they'd have ditched career mode if lots of people were choosing it in preference to open mode?

If they'd kept the career mode, open mode would have continued to be as bad as it is now, but why this is such fantastic news is that they are using the dev time they're freeing up to create the progression in open mode instead. For example, we have hot stints, but no online leaderboards, adding online leaderboards for those will be a big improvement, and for me, improving my leaderboard position as I practice is progression, but it's progression via challenge rather than simply grinding dull chores.
If everything is unlocked there is no progression which was my point.

If they use the time to instead improve and fixing the game i wont complain that much, but it is very dissapointing given that it was a huge Selling point before it launched in ea.

A very big set back in my opinion.

Hopefully modders can do something about it, if its just everything unlocked i wont play as much because there is then no real goal with the game. And everything about open world and buisnesses etc could also be scrapped, if its just big empty open world its going to be a real wasted pontential.
 
Not bothered in the slightest by this news as the driving is already fantastic and I spend all my time in the sim racing online anyway.
The inclusion of online leaderboards is a massive plus 👍
 
People don't realize how important and detrimental this is to the consumer. They sold the game with the career mode and economy as one of its key selling points, and now they've removed it. If we accept this, nothing prevents them from removing anything else later if they want.

Not to mention that EVO without this ultimately ends up being AC1 but worse, simply because it has fewer features than the original (for example there's no option to create your own completely custom servers for free, and mods will be controlled, only including what they want in the game). Also with this change EVO is nothing different from what's already on the market, and the open world is now more of a paperweight than anything else, lol
 
People don't realize how important and detrimental this is to the consumer. They sold the game with the career mode and economy as one of its key selling points, and now they've removed it. If we accept this, nothing prevents them from removing anything else later if they want.
Have you personally been grinding career mode in AC EVO?
 
Also with this change EVO is nothing different from what's already on the market, and the open world is now more of a paperweight than anything else, lol
Exactly what I feel. AC Evo was going to be the first "proper" sim with single-player elements and progression. Remove all of that, and what does this title actually do that's different from the already saturated space that is sim-racing, besides some cars and the driving physics? The "Driving Academy"? Blah...

Never was interested in buying the game in the first place, but I really wanted to see it do well and be a good competitor. I suppose this Early Access just shows how trying to appease everyone often times doesn't work that well, especially if you don't have the resources to back up your overpromising.
 
Have you personally been grinding career mode in AC EVO?
Yes, and I prefer what we have to what they're going to add, although what they're really going to do is remove it and only leave the open mode with more time trial challenges and done it.

I hope I end up wrong, but this is what I see as their plan for the future single-player mode with a "richer and better user experience."

However, this doesn't have much to do with what I'm saying and how controversial this whole issue is.
 
Yes, and I prefer what we have to what they're going to add, although what they're really going to do is remove it and only leave the open mode with more time trial challenges and done it.

I hope I end up wrong, but this is what I see as their plan for the future single-player mode with a "richer and better user experience."

However, this doesn't have much to do with what I'm saying and how controversial this whole issue is.
It does relate to your point, in that I suspect the majority of players have only been playing open mode. I personally don't think I have ever clicked career mode since open mode was added. If you have personally been grinding the career mode, then that is fair enough, you voted for career mode with your time, but I can only think that you are in the minority in doing that, as it would make no sense for them to remove a popular feature.
 
Kunos put out an update on their Discord today, and it's not good news if you wanted EVO to be more than a sandbox+online racing.

View attachment 1511010

This saddens me, I can't lie. Why do sim racing game developers so consistently treat the "game" part of "sim racing game" as if it's anathema to them? Especially this one, EVO had all the ingredients to build a great career from, but nope, "competitive features" rule the day yet again...

Yeah this is pretty disappointing to read I have to say, I was looking forward to seeing this become a serious alternative to Gran Turismo with it's licenses, economy and progression mimicking that classic Gran Turismo experience.

I get bored of games very quickly that don't offer structure or reason to keep playing. I hope that whatever they do actually remains engaging.

Also, I get that modding is a big part of Assetto Corsa but I was kind of happy to see it take a backseat in Evo, let the game do the taking without needing to worry about what mods are going to improve the experience.
I agree 100% and am of the same opinion.
I think this is fantastic news. I assume that most people chose open rather than career mode, and that's why they're ditching career mode. I've always thought that most people don't want the chore-based grind of games like TC/FH/GT, but they put up with it to enjoy the parts of the game they do enjoy. Now Kunos is breaking the mold and saying "Hey, why force players to do that dull stuff to be able to do the fun stuff, why not let them spend ALL of their time playing the game doing the fun stuff.". I totally agree with them.
Most people ON PC chose open rather than career mode. They have absolutely ZERO information about what people want on the Console versions.
It does relate to your point, in that I suspect the majority of players have only been playing open mode. I personally don't think I have ever clicked career mode since open mode was added. If you have personally been grinding the career mode, then that is fair enough, you voted for career mode with your time, but I can only think that you are in the minority in doing that, as it would make no sense for them to remove a popular feature.
Without a career mode, this now looks like it becomes on console, a hot lap simulator and an open world cruising game - basically AC1 with an open world mod (e.g. Lake Louise).

With the much larger budget for AC Evo compared to AC1, this game MUST do well on console AS WELL AS PC. AC1 seemed to do comparatively worse for console sales than PC sales. AC Evo doesn't have the luxury of doing the same, because PC sales alone won't cover the budget.

Yes, I agree that with this decision they have most likely pleased the majority of PC buyers/owners.

But the effect on console sales we won't know until a long time from now.
 
and what does this title actually do that's different from the already saturated space that is sim-racing
Excellent question.
The answer is: a lot
Earlier today, I was lapping around Nürburgring GP, an a Alpine A110, with a few other sportscars, weather was shifting from drizzle to dry to rain to dry.
I have all sim, enjoy them all, some more than other.
None of them can replicate what I experienced today, in a very early access stage of AC EVO. Yes it is a been a year since EA launch, but the progress do not reflect that, we are still at the very beginning, for better and for worst.
AC Evo drives, looks and feel different. Already offers contents, track and cars, with unparallel details.
If your favorite activity in a SIM is racing a bunch of GT3, yes, you are already covered somewhere else by at least 2 or 3 titles.
But, simulating racing/driving on track is much more than that.
even with limited content at the moment, what Evo offers is more and better than most and often, at least for cars, has no competition.
EVO does not have to replace all the titles in your library, it is ok to enjoy different titles for what they have to offer.
EVO should and is offering a new take on what it feels like, in 2026, to drive a car in a simulator, for me it is mission accomplish.
Should it be better optimized, have more content, absolutely, let see what 0.5 brings to the table.
Does it need a career/grinding mode? no it does not.
 
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So what's actually left of the game? Generic online multiplayer (GT3s at Spa) and an open-world map with nothing to do? And no good mods to fill in the blanks since everything's going to be locked down for Kunos to get a cut. What exactly is the point of ACE at this point?
 
So what's actually left of the game? Generic online multiplayer (GT3s at Spa) and an open-world map with nothing to do? And no good mods to fill in the blanks since everything's going to be locked down for Kunos to get a cut. What exactly is the point of ACE at this point?
Don't forget the paid custom servers too.
 
i like something to aim for, some sort of goal. I'm 80% through AC1's career. I was the same in ACC until it reset me. Once the FOMO stopped in FM2023 and I already had all the cars I stopped playing it regularly. I play it about once a month now. I've nearly completed all the classes in Project Cars 3. Once I have that game will gather dust.
Some of you are happy to hotlap, others to race fellow humans. I want something to show for my time spent playing a game, on my own, and if that's some fictional currency to spend, a new car or a new trophy to chase then that's my choice. If I don't then my attention span will be that of a gnat :cheers:


(no offence to gnats intended)
I bought Automobilista2 in December 2022. It doesn't have a career mode.
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It does relate to your point, in that I suspect the majority of players have only been playing open mode. I personally don't think I have ever clicked career mode since open mode was added. If you have personally been grinding the career mode, then that is fair enough, you voted for career mode with your time, but I can only think that you are in the minority in doing that, as it would make no sense for them to remove a popular feature.
Whether it's the majority or the minority, it doesn't matter, you still don't understand the part of the comment you quoted first.

Perhaps if you replace "career mode" with "modding support" you'll understand what I mean by that part better, because it's something they could cancel later if they deem it necessary, and we won't be able to complain because they've already done it before with something else and we just let it go, right?
 
It does relate to your point, in that I suspect the majority of players have only been playing open mode. I personally don't think I have ever clicked career mode since open mode was added. If you have personally been grinding the career mode, then that is fair enough, you voted for career mode with your time, but I can only think that you are in the minority in doing that, as it would make no sense for them to remove a popular feature.
Is that not likely to be because the game is early access therefore very little of a career mode existed. What we currently have does not equal what was promised or expected. There are half a dozen open sandbox sims out there, there's one Gran Turismo style sim and not a great one at that available on PC at the moment and that is at end of life.

That could say demand is low, but then why does Gran Turismo sell so well? There is a definite gap in the market for a PC based GT style game that is done well. There is definitely a place for open sandboxes as well, but you don't need to pretend the demand for the other doesn't exist just because it's not your preference.
 
How hard and costly is it really to create a campaign like GT4 or FM4? Which IMO are two of the best career modes ever in a racing game.
At a basic level, not very, the hard part comes with car customisation. Installing better suspension, engine upgrades etc. Creating events and setting prize money etc. isn't that difficult. I can create a couple of events in GT5 or GT6 in one evening with the telly on if I'm inclined to. Once you have the vehicle upgrades sorted out, the rest is pretty straight forward.
 
Not having progression is step backwords in my opinion.

Makes career mode more pointless, there is already an open mode where everything is unlocked
Career mode wont be pointless, its never coming back
People don't realize how important and detrimental this is to the consumer. They sold the game with the career mode and economy as one of its key selling points, and now they've removed it. If we accept this, nothing prevents them from removing anything else later if they want.

Not to mention that EVO without this ultimately ends up being AC1 but worse, simply because it has fewer features than the original (for example there's no option to create your own completely custom servers for free, and mods will be controlled, only including what they want in the game). Also with this change EVO is nothing different from what's already on the market, and the open world is now more of a paperweight than anything else, lol
Custom servers are part of Content Manager, which is by itself a mod NOT supported by Kunos
 

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