2021 racing video game preview – The Traxion Podcast, episode two

As we have now entered the third month of 2021, new racing games have started to be released. Very soon, Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 will be available, followed closely by Monster Energy Supercross 4 and a next-gen version of Monster Truck Championship.

In our latest podcast, the Traxion team discussed which games they expect to be released this year, speculate on how they will evolve and go through why they are excited about particular titles.

Also, this was recorded just before Gran Turismo 7 was pushed back to 2022. Great timing! We’ve also got our 2021 game preview article, also just written before the GT7 news. Doh!

But, that’s not all. We’d like to hear from you in the comments, either below or on YouTube, what new racing game are you looking forward to in 2021?

The Traxion Podcast is available on all major podcast outlets. Simply search “Traxion Podcast” on your favourite podcast service and subscribe to get instant notifications when the latest episode releases.

Hosted by Justin Sutton, John Munro and Thomas Harrison-Lord.

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The Traxion Podcast episode two, full transcript

Here’s the automated transcript, it’s all its erroneous glory.

Justin Sutton:

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Traxion podcast, where we discuss racing video games across all genres and for all skill levels. Today, we are going to be talking about the upcoming racing games of 2021 that we’re most excited about. I’m Justin and joining me today is Tom and John.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Hello there.

John Munro:

Hi guys.

Justin Sutton:

So obviously, 2020 was not a great year for video games for, I mean, for planet earth, honestly, if we’re totally honest. So, 2021 has a pretty low bar and there are a lot of games, a lot of racing games coming out. We’re going to talk about several of them. But I mean, it’s, it’s a tough one. I don’t know if, if we should get our hopes up too much. It was, it was a difficult year last year and it’s looking like 2021 might be under sort of similar circumstances. So, I mean, do you guys think that we should be expecting, you know, the kind of triple A titles that we’ve gotten in years previous?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

That was an awkward pause, quite a lot of games coming out in 2021, really, but a lot of them, we sort of expect, but they’ve not been fully announced or they’ve had like a teaser trailer and there’s not gameplay. And I think a lot of them while they might be penciled in as 2021 could be delayed till 20, 22. So I feel like there’s a lot to get excited about, but who knows when they’re actually going to.

John Munro:

I kind of feel the same as that, to be honest, I think obviously there’s always a bit of anticipation, but I think with the whole global pandemic that’s going on at the moment, I think everyone’s expectations have to be just a little bit calm and as much as game developers will try their best to get things out. I think it’s just been a tough year for everyone and you’ve got to have a little bit of sympathy for everyone involved for that, but yeah, we’ll, wait and see.

Justin Sutton:

So the, the main games, let’s go ahead and talk about some of the ones that like we know for sure are coming out. For example, F1, F1 2021, that’s coming out, it’s a yearly release, as you mentioned, there’s no like trailer or anything like that, but it’d be really weird if they didn’t come out with an F1 21. F1 2020 was pretty good. I mean, I didn’t play the single player career mode, but I heard it was, you know, the best yet. I saw a lot of YouTube videos and that kind of stuff. I mean, do you think we can expect 2021 to be better? The same? I’m not so sure.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

It’s difficult. It’s difficult. I really enjoyed the, my team career of F1 2020 was a big step forward, a nice innovation itself, collated what they’ve been progressing towards for many years, being able to, have a driver market kind of like a FIFA title way, had like drivers scores and cards. And then you could actually at the end of the season, change your teammate from either the F2 drivers, all the ones that are existing In F1. After time, if you’ve played many seasons, drivers would retire. You could edit your livery so that your team name, all that good stuff, but for this year, how are you going to top that, it’s quite difficult, but it’s a very important year for F1 because it’s a transitional period between console generations and technology. And also Codemasters is being purchased by EA I don’t think from a development point of view, it’s too late in the day for that to have any effect, but maybe in 2022 they might have to change like frostbite engine or something like this, who knows. But there’s big, big changes behind the scenes. And also I’ll be very interested to see if it’s going to be an all new game from scratch for the new generation or this year’s like, you know, paddling for time, while they work on something bigger for next year.

John Munro:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think F1 2020 raised the bar really well, as you said, and I think that obviously they’ve got a bit of a reputation at the moment for just bringing out new features each year and they’ve really been improving their games well. I think most people can agree that the progression rates probably about F1 2015, every game has just got slightly better than the one before, they’ve got more features. And obviously they’re setting a bar really high for themselves, but I think, I mean, that’s a great thing, right. You know, we all love the F1 games and we all want to see new exciting features, but I feel like they’re really listening to the fans and doing what we want. I think there was a long time where everyone was really, really hoping to get driver driver changes a bit like FIFA and be able to actually feel like they were in a real kind of F1 career.

John Munro:

But, obviously when that came in, a lot of people were thinking, where do they go from here? And then they had the story mode, obviously with Web… With Lucas Webber and Butler. And then of course the, the mighty mode this year added something new again. So they’re, they’re definitely on the right trajectory. I wouldn’t probably hold it against them if they didn’t have any major features this year because of the recent addition of major features. But what I’d quite like to see is maybe an incorporation of both F1 2019 and 2020s, best things. So, maybe the, my team from F1 2020, but maybe a little bit of a, you know, more, I guess, cut scene immersion and maybe more of a new story for GP2 drivers coming through F2 drivers like we had in the previous game. I think a combination of those two things would be quite cool, you know? But we have to wait and see, you know, it’s been, it’s been a tough year again, as I said. So, I’m trying to keep my expectations not too high.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. And I’d love to see some laser scanning on the tracks, but with COVID-19 happening, I don’t know how easy or difficult it is for developers of all games, not just F1 to actually get out there and visit these locations around the world. So that’s also just a general trend to watch, but it is something I’d like to see in an F1 game.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. Certainly, it would be nice if they could carry over this stuff, but as you kind of alluded to, this is sort of the most important F1 game since 2015, because 2015 was the new gen. It was PS4, Xbox One, you know, it was the brand new generation, brand, new graphics, physics, all that kind of stuff. What do you hope for while? I’ll start with you, Tom, what do you hope for in terms of 2021 like physics and stuff like that, do you hope for more realism, you mentioned the laser scanning. Do you hope it’s more realistic, closer to sim because right now it’s kind of in that space between sim and arcade.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I think it has to remain between, because Formula 1 has a broad demographic around the world, a bit, lots of people playing with a controller, but also lots of people playing with a wheel. And I feel like the handling balances that very well at the minute, but I would like some more detail in the tracks and the environments that doesn’t necessarily make it a sim, but it makes it more authentic. And I think everyone can benefit from that.

Justin Sutton:

Immersion.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

But yeah, exactly. Immersion. And from, from the online side, there’s still some weirdness with how the virtual safety car works and stuff like this. Don’t know if you’ve experienced that when you’ve been commentating online, Justin, but got some oddness there. But if they come out with a game that’s more bare bones and completely new, I’d be happy with that. If it’s a transitional year and they’ve added, like, I dunno, Formula 3 to it, instead of all new and waiting for another year, I’d also be relatively happy with that as well.

Justin Sutton:

John?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. I pretty much agree with most of what you were saying there, Tom. I think it’s, it’s whatever they do, you know, as long as they do something, that’s a little bit different and put a little bit of effort. And I think we’re all going to be reasonably happy. The realism thing I’m kind of in a similar position, I think, and it needs to sit somewhere in between and I do feel like the F1 games have been a little bit tricky on a controller for a few years, with certain direction changes and stuff. And obviously that’s something that’s always going to be an issue where the controller, you know, like for example, swimming pool chicane on Monaco, it’s almost impossible to get through there a high speed, like you can on a wheel and little things like that are tricky. So if they have to be really nitpicky, I’d like there to be maybe something that just helps that a little bit more.

John Munro:

But again, as I say, they’ve struck a really nice balance where I think sim fans, once they get used to the physics can really enjoy F1 2020 as it is at the moment. But at the same time, you can be a fan of it with a controller. You can play on it. You know, we can have likes of Ian Poulter racing against F1 drivers and not being far off the pace. So I think they need to stay somewhere in the middle. Obviously in a dream world, we have a situation where we have two kinds of physics engines where you have the hardcore sim engine and you have the kind of controller based arcade engine. But that’s, that’s a big, a big step in the future potentially, but right now, I honestly, I think they’ve done a good job. So I think if they keep it where it is, and maybe just work a little bit on something like direction changes, that’d be amazing.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. And, you guys kind of touched on the esports side as well, which is something that I’m involved in and I follow a lot of the esports drivers and stuff like that. And these guys complained a lot about the online as well. So I know for sure that’s something that, the esports community is concerned about. They want, they want better, less lag, you know, they want better connections, all that kind of stuff, but it’s such a small thing for the average consumer. The average person is just going in their just playing career mode. So I can understand why it’s a low priority for Codemasters, but at the same time, people are tuning in to see the esports, and that’s selling their product. So it’s a tough one. I hope that they can improve the online, but at the same time, I understand why career is such a focus for them.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. You just reminded me of a really big thing that is often complained about or discussed with that game, especially online is the track limits and how they don’t represent them in real life necessarily.They’re either too strict or too slack in some areas. So I hope that there’s some method where they can, improve upon that because I was watching, some of the virtual Grand Prix stuff last year during lockdown and in one of the races, I think it was China. All the drivers were using this big curb, way out wide that they wouldn’t do in real life. So, there needs to be some refinement there that that would be nice.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I think would be really cool actually is if they, had the ability at least to turn off the fans at the circuit, because obviously every F1 game has, is just, fans all over the place. But for the new, we can’t do that in this day and age. Exactly, exactly. And I mean, that would save system resources as well, too, you know, you don’t have to animate or render any of those fans or anything like that. So, certainly that’s something that I would hope for personally.

John Munro:

I think it would be really good actually, if you made the 2021 version, like even if you had the same game, but just instead of having the normal celebrations of the podium, everyone was wearing masks, we had all that stuff. I think that would be a great addition.

Justin Sutton:

Those robots, the podium robot.

Justin Sutton:

So another game that’s due to come out in 2021, we’ll just quickly move away from, from F1, is, and I’m going to lean on you guys heavily for this one is MotoGP. I am not, I much prefer four wheels over two. I don’t know if you know this it’s a lot more stable. It doesn’t fall over when you have four wheels, you don’t have to worry about falling over. It’s fantastic, but I have not played a motor GP game or a motorcycle game at all since like, I don’t know NES or something like that. I mean, w what is the state of MotoGP games and what can we even hope for?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

In one word iteration? So the, the MotoGP game released every year officially licensed and developed by Italian developer, Milestone. And they also make several of the motorcycle games as well. A few years ago, they were using their own engine. This is on the PlayStation 4, XBox One generation, but then halfway through that, they switched to unreal engine, had some big teething problems initially, now that they have been solved. And the last game MotoGP 20 was a very, very solid game, but it lacked to sort of sparkle or innovation to really move it forward. You know, we’ve talked about the F1, my team. Well, the career mode in MotoGP is a really sort of more old fashioned, career mode. Where you start from the bottom and rise to the top, but there’s not much you can do in terms of team management, really. And likewise, the online you there’s no like, online tournaments or championship rankings, or races that rank you against, or put you in lobbies with people of the same skill level, all of that is sort of missing. So that’s what I really hope for for this year.

Justin Sutton:

John?

John Munro:

I’m similar to you Justin, I’m leaning more on Tom for this one. I think motorcycle games have got a really good history and there’s lots of different variety. You know we saw, obviously Ride 4 came out in 2020, and that seemed to be a big success. And yeah, recently I’ve not really had, been doing as much of the motorcycle games. I think, as you say, it would be good to have something a little bit more immersive and something a little bit fresh just to change up a wee bit. I don’t think that they’re necessarily bad games, I’ve played a little bits and, I never really complained about the quality of the game, but it just doesn’t quite give me that immersion that makes me want to come back and really experience it in the full. So I think there’s definitely some work to be done, but as you say, you know, Milestone are producing so many games every year. I think that’s something that can be commanded.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah, it’s a good game. And it looks really good and it has all the licenses and what I would say, that’s extremely positive with MotoGP. The MotoGP games is that it has all the support classes. So F1 has just F2. MotoGP has Moto2, It has Moto3, It has MotoE, which is the electric support series and it has the Red Bull Juniors, which is, so it has the four support classes, all licensed with all the riders. So that’s a hell of a lot of work and that’s really good, but it needs more than just quantity to excel. And also, again, we’re in this cross-generational period. So it’d be interesting to see if they just do like a halfway house game with shiny graphics this year, or they actually try something all new.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. And I wonder if these games, F1 and MotoGP specifically, I do wonder if these are going to be available on the previous gen, because I know there’s stock issues. Iit’s so hard to get a PS5 and an Xbox series X right now. So a lot of people who want one and have the money for one, can’t even get one for a reasonable price. Anyway, I’m sure they could go get one used or whatever, secondhand for a thousand dollars or a thousand euros or whatever.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I should really sell mine.

Justin Sutton:

Probably,

John Munro:

I’ll buy it.

Justin Sutton:

Probably make a nice…

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Actually I want to keep it.

Justin Sutton:

That’s how badly people want to get one. But I wonder if these companies are going to cause, they, these are supposed to be the next gen games. I mean, it was last year that these next gen consoles came out. But I wonder if there’s going to be PS4 next month, One version’s.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

If I was a betting person and I’m not, I would say that the you’re correct. I think at the very least they’ll be on PS4, XBox One. It might even be that they don’t have a full next gen version and they rely on sort of the backwards compatibility. So, I’m thinking it’s different time, different scenario, but when F1 went from the PlayStation 3 era to PlayStation 4, that year’s game was only on the old gen, they missed a year, different times, different people in the team. I’m sure. But that could be a real possibility. It’s interesting point you’ve raised there.

John Munro:

Yeah. That’s a good point as well, Tom, that like it’s, you know, I think that especially, I would keep alluding to it and I’m sorry, but you know, with what everything that’s going on, it’s just that little bit tougher to get things done and to be able to travel to places. Times for everything production time is, is limited and it’s, it’s just a tough environment. So I think we will see, I think at the least it will be available for the older gen and maybe for the first few years, it’s just more of a question of whether they’ll have a fully optimized version for the next-gen, but, yeah, I’m really excited to find out.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I mean, you can probably still buy a new version of FIFA for PS2, right?

Justin Sutton:

Yeah, I would assume so. But, previous years, everybody would have been like, you know, all of the new game better be on the new gen, you know, cause everybody wants the new shiny graphics and the new shiny physics. This must be the first generation ever where people are like, please don’t release it on the new gen. Like, you know, I want you to release it on the old gen console.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. And with the new ones being backwards, compatible that lessens the blow a lot as well. Doesn’t it? If it just came out on PS4 but I can play it on PS5 and it probably will run a bit better. So it’s still a new game and I could probably wait until 2022, but let’s see.

Justin Sutton:

I would, I do appreciate that when the developers release like a, like a PS4 version of the game and then it has like some extra frame range or something like that. Yeah, exactly. Something small. It doesn’t even have to be that much. It’s certainly beneficial, okay. Let’s move on to NASCAR, which is obviously something I know, yeah, the game anyway. I know quite well, but this is a big year for NASCAR, obviously. It’s going to be the first game fully developed by Motorsport Games. I know this is kind of news to you guys, so you’re, you’re probably, “Oh, interesting” but obviously NASCAR Heat 5 heavily based on NASCAR Heat 4, as you would imagine, you know, same generation, same, it was on unity, et cetera. It’s all the same kind of stuff. Similar to what F1 did with 15, 16, 17, so on and so on. But this is going to be the first one where they said it’s not going to be on unity. I can’t say anything beyond that. I do know what engine it’s going to be.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

There’s not many successful racing games on unity.

Justin Sutton:

It’s true. I looked it up one time and I don’t think there was any in fact. It’s a rough engine to do with, with racing games. And I’ve specifically spoken to the developers that, that came in, after Monster Games. Cause they were the ones that were creating the games up to NASCAR Heat 5 and they talked about the challenges of developing a racing game in unity and stuff. So I know, I know they’re super duper excited about, about this year’s game. I’m super duper excited about this year’s game. We don’t have any information about old gen, new gen, anything like that. But again, what we do know is it’s all new from the ground up, using the Motorsport Games team and stuff like that. Do you guys have, have you, either of you played the Heat games in the past.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I played 3, 4 and 5. How about you John?

Justin Sutton:

3, 4, and 5?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I’ve had a lot of history of doinH NASCAR stuff on a mixture like iRacing. And so I’ve played a bit of heat 5, but not much, I’ve also played the mobile version, which is actually fun. It’s really, really good fun. And I’m honestly so excited, for the next generation of this. I think it will be really cool to see what differences there are. Hopefully they’ll add this feature where you can turn right sometimes as well. That’d be really good.

John Munro:

It’s a really fun game, the thing about a NASCAR game that makes as well as the, I love the format of NASCAR where, you’re in a race and you don’t need to necessarily lead from the start. You can be at the back of the pack, can have a caution, you could be fighting your way through and it’s so much about pit stop strategy. And I feel like we’re races like that. I’m like, so Formula 1, you really kind of don’t know where it’s going to go until the last 10 laps. I think the idea of a newly updated NASCAR game and from the ground up. And I just think there’s so much potential there for it to be really cool. So I, for one, I’m very excited about turning left more often.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

You sound very enthused that yeah, I’m interested to see how it plays out. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. So for me, it’s all about how they improve the feel on the track and the handling and the performance. And that’s what I felt was lacking with Heat 5 personally and also Heat 5 was very, very similar to Heat 4, but with like a improved rosters. So there needs to be some bigger changes, but it sounds like from what you’ve said, there is going to be that.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah, it’s going to be certainly fundamentally different again from the ground up, you know, completely different engine, completely different physics. I know there’s a lot of focus on that kind of stuff for this year because you’re starting a platform. I hate to bring it up again, but it’s like what you said with F1 2015, that was like the start of the new generation and it was feature light, but physically graphics heavy. And I’m not involved in the actual development of the, I was on the community side of things. So I’m speaking hypothetically, but certainly with a new generation, you would expect it to be exactly like that, kind of lighter on, those kinds of features, but heavier on the, you know, personally, I would much prefer a game where you could go out and just turn some laps by yourself and have a great time. But maybe doesn’t have a ton of stuff going on in it rather than a game that’s chock full of content but just, isn’t quite as fun to turn laps in. I don’t know how you guys feel about that.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Couldn’t put it better myself. Really. I think Heat 5 was full of content, but I want to keep more on track feeling. So, Oh, I said the word feeling, which every racing driver does in every interview ever.

John Munro:

I agree. I agree. Like obviously features are a big thing, but you got to give it time to comment. I think they’ve got to focus on the groundwork because if you establish good groundwork, everyone can wish for better features and more features, and they can add things in as the years go on. But if the groundwork’s not there, you’re not going to have a great game and it’s going to be really difficult to come back from that. I think so if they start well with that and the racing is good, it also like online racing, it’s important that you’re able to race side by side and not feel like you’re about to crash into everyone. Every time you touch the stick on a controller, like it needs to feel usable. It needs to be user-friendly and, maybe that’s somewhere where NASCAR Heat 5 struggled. So let’s see how it is, but I’m feeling good about it.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah, I am optimistic obviously I’ve had slightly more insight than the average person anyway. But certainly I’m very excited for the new NASCAR game. Again, it’s the first one from Motorsport Games fully, sort of from the ground up. So yeah, it’s going to be a very different sort of experience. Moving on to the next one, we’re expecting a Need for Speed game this year?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. Not confirmed on the day. I don’t think, but I think it is confirmed that Criterion Games developing it, and it was a very, very brief, very, very brief sort of teaser-ish, which was sort of in engine and not in game of two cars. I think one of them was a Porsche, sat still during the presentation about how next gen is going to improve the load and times and stuff. So there was Burnout Paradise remastered released at least a couple of years ago. And then just the end of 2020, there was Need for Speed Hot Pursuit remastered. They’re both Criterion Games games. That make sense? And they’re both excellent. So the hope is something like that, please, but with shiny 4k graphics, that’d be nice.

John Munro:

That would be cool.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I think for me that era of Need for speed. The Criterion ones were really good and maybe in the latter years, it’s sort of tailed off. I don’t know if you’re going to agree or disagree with that, Justin?

Justin Sutton:

I haven’t played a Need for Speed game in years, but from the outside looking in, it seemed to me like a game that’s more about customizing than it is about actual driving.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Interesting.

John Munro:

Yeah. I’d go with that too.

Justin Sutton:

You know It’s heavy on the customising. Yeah, go ahead.

John Munro:

No, I was just gonna say like, I’m a similar that I’ve not been playing it too much recently, but I did, I did give one of the games ago a few years ago every which was just Need for Speed. And I actually really, really enjoyed that. That was probably my peak sim racing game phase, where I was avoiding a lot of the arcade style stuff and I really enjoyed that game. It was good, fun. It obviously doesn’t it, with Need for Speed for people like my age. It’s a lot of nostalgia, you know, the games from when you, that you grew up with and I’m sure we’ll talk about that in another podcast, but I’m definitely keen to see what it’s like on next gen, because I think a big part of Need for Speed is the aesthetics and the visual elements of it. So yeah, let’s, let’s wait and see, I think I’ll be a good one as well, but time will tell.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Big selling franchise can’t be underestimated.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. It’s sort of one of those genre defining, genre breaking, you know, people that aren’t into racing games will buy a Need for Speed game because they grew up on it. Yeah. Or because they know the company that it’s from or whatever it might be. But I mean, personally I would like it to work on a wheel better because you know, I, and this is from a massive fan of the Forza Horizon series. I think Horizon has found that nice balance between between sim and arcade. F1 is a little bit more leaning towards sim than arcade rather than compared to like Forza Horizon, I would say. But I would like to see just a little bit better physics from a Need for Speed. Just a little bit. I’m not asking for anything too crazy. If it was like Forza Horizon, then, it would be a genuine competitor for me specifically.

Justin Sutton:

I just know I’ve watched videos of Need for Speed games, recent Need for Speed games from the last half decade or so. And I see a lot of drifting to go faster. You know what I mean? And it’s like, look, you can have the drifting. I don’t mind. And even if it’s the same speed, that’s fine. But it’s like Mario Kart, it’s closer to Mario Kart than it is to Forza where like you have to expect during the drift for the wheels to start glowing blue, and then for you to shoot out the exit of the corner with a boost, like, what is that? I just want, I want it to be somewhat based in reality.

John Munro:

I don’t know with Need for Speed. I’m not sure I fully agree but saying, so I’m kind of in a knot with myself. Cause part of me feels like this game needs to be accessible for everyone. It needs to be for someone who has no idea about cars, they wanna be able to see what it’s like to drift. Okay. You don’t actually drive the car with a controller like you would and make it drift in the same way, but it’s super satisfying that it doesn’t take much effort to start drifting around all the corners. But then I think, but again and Need for Speed is almost marketed as a kind of, it’s not really a kid’s game, is it? It’s a lot more, it’s just, I guess it’s more teenage to adult and it’s got a lot of kind of adult themes to it. It feels like they’re almost aiming for a mature audience, but then the way the physics are set kind of suits younger, your younger audience as well, at least as well as less experienced. I’m kind of, I’m tying myself in knots. So whether I agree with you or not, it’s a bit of both

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Basically. I think what we’re saying is who would want to be Criterion Games right now trying to get the right balance of accessibility and pleasing, Justin, so you know, fingers crossed the, does anyone care about the story and the Need for Speed games? A lot of the, I think you said Justin like, Oh, it’s a lot about customization and it really is. There’s lots of YouTubers out there who just do customization mods for Need for Speed each weekend. Oh, look at my new bullbar or exhaust, but also the games have gotten a lot more story-based of late. I think the one you’ve just played, John has like Ken Block in there. Doesn’t it? I just played that recently as well. Yeah. Magnus Walker. The one after that was all about trying to do these stunts and a bit of a heist thing going on. And so I do think the Criterion Games one would have a big story in, or would it be more paired back like a Burnout Paradise where there’s basically not really one?

Justin Sutton:

I would hope for a story, but I would hope for a story that focuses more on the actual writing. You know what I mean? I would prefer that they focus on the quality of the story rather than the famousness of the people in it and that sort of thing. You know what I mean? I don’t, I love a good story. I love TV movies. I love RPGs. I love games with some story. And then what I don’t like is Forza Horizon story stuff, like the unskippable cut scenes with people’s mouths who don’t move and the camera’s behind and stuff it’s so half-assed that. Can I say that? It’s so it’s so bad and, you know, I love Forza Horizon, but the story and the cut scenes are garbage. They are the worst thing in gaming, If you asked me, they’re just so, so bad. I like what Need for Speed is attempting, but sometimes it’s just really cringy and it seems like watching a low budget TV show that’s made for tweens and stuff like that. Like they’re using like lingo that I don’t even think they understand, you know what I mean? Like I would love if they would rather put that money into hiring somebody who knows how to write a good story, you know, and then that’s really going to captivate me.

John Munro:

This kind of comes back to what I was saying as well though Justin, where I feel like the stories are written in a way that’s cringy and feels very young and is into very young people. But then also, the kind of theme of it feels like it’s a bit more mature and kind of not suitable. It’s this really weird kind of violence. Like when I was playing, I think I was probably like 18 when I played that game. And for me it felt really childish, but then also like kind of a bit dodgy at the same time. It was just a weird balance. So I agree with you.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

But what you said about like being mature, but aimed for young people, like the Need for Speed from a couple of years ago, we’ve both recently played, right. Has like these adults and you meet up with them in the cut scenes and they’re in a bar and stuff, and they’re having a party, but they’re having this party and they’re all just drinking energy drinks. They’re not drinking alcohol.

Justin Sutton:

You don’t like to get together with your friends and just chuck a bunch of caffeine?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yes, with some music and some lights?

Justin Sutton:

Right. I have high hopes for it, but low expectations is essentially my feelings with Need for Speed. But I mean, I would love to enjoy it just as a game to play on a controller. I, again, I would love for it to be usable and playable and fun on a wheel and all that kind of stuff, but yeah. As long as its good on controller, exactly. As long as it’s good on control and stuff like that, I think it could be really good.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Alternative theory, not for 2021, but for 2022 or three. And that is, does anyone play at Fast and Furious Crossroads?

Justin Sutton:

No, I can’t say

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Absolutely terrible. I finished it for my sins and in their actual likenesses of like Vin Diesel, he’s in there and lending the voice, they’ve tried to make it very cinematic and ultimately failed. And I wouldn’t like to speculate on why or how that happened, but it’s, unfortunately it’s a turgid mess, but Slightly Mad Studios did the Fast and Furious Crossroads game. They were recently bought by Codemasters, Codemasters has recently been bought by EA, so could Need for Speed and Fast and Furious combine in some weird kind of thing, even if it’s just DLC because there was a Need for Speed film. And it was kind of been like, it was trying to be like Fast and Furious. I don’t know. I’ve got half an idea there.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah I forgot about that movie.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. Right.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. I completely forgot about that. Yeah. Right. I would, I would prefer if like Need for Speed and Fast and Furious got some Project Cars, physics, you know, or something like that. That’s what I would rather see personally. I don’t know about you, John.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I see where you’re coming from, but I think even Project Cars 2 is probably for me too far in the balance towards sim, it’s obviously going to be better on a wheel, but I think Need for Speed for me always needs to retain the ability for a 10 or 11 year old to pick it up. And I don’t even know if they’re allowed to play it, but it feels like that, to be able to play the game with a controller and be able to drift everywhere like it, if they had like maybe a couple of different routes that they went down, maybe there isn’t like if maybe the Need for Speed type game was, was more arcadey than the Fast and Furious game, have the kind of Project Cars 2 physic’s but the Need for Speed style story, then I’d be up for that. There’s maybe some room for it, but yeah, for me, it’s got to stay as fully accessible because that’s one of the joys about that game is anyone can play.

Justin Sutton:

Interesting. I think it’s fascinating that Need for Speed has us the most divided out of everything. We’ve also got and this is another one that, I don’t follow too closely. I don’t have a Sony console, but Gran Turismo 7 coming out in 2021? Is that right? You guys are hyped.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I’m hyped. I’m so hyped. Are you John?

John Munro:

I’m more than hyped Tom. Yeah. Sorry, Justin. I think that Gran Turismo 7 obviously for me growing up Gran Turismo was THE game for, you know, because it was the, I guess it was one of the first real crosses between SIM and racing. And when I was a kid, it was really, really enjoyable because of the depth of it. You know Gran Turismo 3, Gran Turismo 4 for me what made it, what was the career mode? Right? The GT story mode and for me, it’s gone so far down hill with the most recent couple of titles. I think Gran Turismo 5 as again, for another podcast I underrated, but GT sport lost a little bit of the lost a little bit of magic. And I feel like with GT 7, the bringing back GT mode, for that reason, I am very, very excited for it. And I just so hope they can recapture some of the magic from, GT 2, 3 and 4.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I’ve got so many thoughts right now and I really can’t decide where to begin. I’m going to start with that’s hope it comes out this year, but if it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world. I’m okay with that. Let’s make it good. Yeah. So I think why we’ve included it here. And while we’re talking about it is a 2021 preview, is that during the PlayStation 5 reveal stream, there was a trailer for GT 7 and it did look like there was gameplay in there. It wasn’t like a pre-rendered thing. It was cockpit cam, someone driving the game and you’re like, Oh, so maybe it’s nearly ready. And then there was some leak about some Japanese advert where it said in the small print, Ooh, early 2021, which I think was maybe a typo or something. I’m not going to get too excited about that.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I think we would have heard a lot more about it at this point. So earliest Christmas 2021, I would really like that. But if it’s going into next year, it’s fine. And then the second point was, I like Gran Turismo Sport, and I know it’s not got the career and the progression and it has got career reasons. It has got license test, but they’re not that great. They weren’t that. Yeah, exactly. They’re not that good. They weren’t there at the start. You had to wait a couple of years before. There’s a lot of them there. But it really innovated in the online esports space, especially for console players, it was accessible. It puts you into these rank traces that are really much in your skill level. And so if you combine the online innovation with the classic GT single player, that should be the perfect marriage. And that’s why I’m excited for GT 7.

John Munro:

Yeah. I agree with that Tom. I think the online of GT Sport was really good, but for me, what made GT, the Gran Turismo series so good in the first place was the offline stuff. I play Gran Turismo for the offline, not the online. And then when they missed that and it was put off it, but I don’t, I would not deny for a second. The GT Sport is really accessible as an online platform. So I feel like a combination of the two, which is what I think this is going to be will be great.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. And I just think, I would temper it slightly from my side that the single player AI in other games has moved on much more than polyphony digitals, unfortunately. So if they’re going to have this big single-player weight to the game, which the trailer is all about the single-player stuff, it even shows you like the menus, then I just hope there’s some AI improvements there. Or if there isn’t just some new way of racing to get around that, you start at the back each time, or I don’t know some, some other invention, but still so excited, but I just don’t want to get too carried away and it’d be a bit of a let down. So, I can’t deny though that it’s a massive series over 80 million Gran Turismo games sold. So it’s very, very important. So just take your time with it, please.

Justin Sutton:

I think, last I checked still the highest selling racing game of all time is one of the Gran Turismo’s. If you ignore Mario Kart, it’s like the first four slots are all Mario Kart, top selling racing games, but then after that, it’s two Gran Turismo’s. There’s a good reason for that. And yeah, I was the same way John. I grew up, with Gran Turismo, I think Gran Turismo 1, I rented for my birthday one year. Oh. And I rented the console, so I didn’t have a PlayStation yet. So my parents rented a PlayStation console and rented Gran Turismo for my birthday. And then, you know, all my friends came over. It was like for my 11th birthday or something silly like that, I was very, very young and all my friends came over and we played Gran Turismo all day and all night.

Justin Sutton:

And like, it was like a sleepover thing. And like, we went to bed at 3:00 AM or something crazy like that. And we just played it constantly and just passing the controller too, cause we only had the one controller, we couldn’t even race each other and we just played nonstop and I do miss, I think that’s the reason that I fell in love with Forza Horizon because it’s sort of like the new Gran Turismo. It’s, it’s one of those games where you spend more time not racing than you do racing. You spend more time in the menus and tuning and upgrading and spending money and doing wheel spins and all of that sort of stuff. And it’s, it’s that kind of like RPG element that you just don’t get in other racing games. And it’s actually something that’s been missing up until Horizon came to PC with the third one, because it wasn’t even available on PC for one and two up until Forza Horizon 3 came out on PC a few years ago.

Justin Sutton:

You couldn’t get that kind of single-player racing experience on a PC. It just didn’t exist. Like I said, Assetto Corsa doesn’t have upgrading and money and all of that kind of stuff. None of these PC games do. I mean, iRacing does, but that’s from your actual wallet. That’s not digital money you’re spending. That is real dollars that you earned at work. So I am also very excited. I would love, love, love, love if it was on PC. And I don’t understand these. I know, and I don’t understand that like Microsoft has embraced them. Maybe it’s because they make Windows, but Microsoft has embraced that console and PC gamers are two completely separate things. Never the two shall meet that kind of stuff. And they’ve actually given them the ability to race against each other. You know, you can hop Forza Horizon on a PC or a Xbox you can race against your friend on PC or Xbox and so on and so forth. I would love it if Sony would do that. And it wouldn’t cannibalize any of their market. I really don’t think,

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I think it would. I think it would.

Justin Sutton:

You think it wouldn’t really?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah, because Microsoft is different because they’re getting revenue from you having a windows device and a PC. Sony doesn’t have the opportunity to ever so.

Justin Sutton:

True.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Also, I don’t think Microsoft’s end game is to actually make money by selling Xbox’s. I think that’s…

Justin Sutton:

Right.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

… been and gone. If you’ve got a PC, there’s literally no reason why you’d have an Xbox because all the games are on there, but to play all these amazing games on PlayStation, you have to have a PlayStation. I also think in the future, it might change because Microsoft’s made some big acquisitions and I know we’re going off rails here, but there are so many Sony exclusive games, way more than Microsoft has got. So there’s much more incentive for Sony and Nintendo. Let’s be real, to keep that IP to that. So, you know, I don’t think you’ll ever see Mario on PC either, for example…

Justin Sutton:

Sadly.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

…but I think Microsoft has less to lose by doing this platform sharing.

Justin Sutton:

I mean, that’s what happened with SEGA. They turned from a console maker to just the video game maker.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Whereas PlayStation and Switch are extremely profitable and successful.

Justin Sutton:

PlayStation still the number one selling console worldwide, if I’m not mistaken.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Sutton:

So I can understand that, but again, I don’t like gaming in front of a TV anymore, you know, I like sitting up, right. Especially with a racing game. Like it’s, it’s hard to be like, just slouched back chillin in racing, you’re like attack position when you’re in a racing game. So I don’t know, I’ve just always preferred PC for that kind of stuff and, and for wheel and everything, the different wheels that are available and whatnot. So, do we want to jump into our top picks here? I think we were going to do John first, the game that you’re most looking forward to for 2020, what racing game that you’re most looking forward to?

John Munro:

Well, this is a bit of a curve ball and it hasn’t been mentioned yet. But I’m really excited to see what happens with the new Test Drive game. That’s going to be coming out soon because we’ve obviously, we’ve heard you Test Drive released. We don’t know too much about it yet. I guess it’s one of those ones where I don’t know if we can fully trust when it’s going to be launched because obviously everything that’s going on, but I remember playing the original Test Drive’s and it, for me, it was kind of an equivalent to Forza in that it’s open world. It’s kind of like, it was almost like a Gran Turismo game, not quite as good as Gran Turismo, but an old Gran Turismo game where instead of clicking on the menu of what dealership you want to go to and spend the money, you drive to the dealership, you walk around the show room, pick a car to test, and then if you desire it, you work up the money and you buy the car.

John Munro:

And I just feel like that kind of concept with an open world map. And you’re driving to different dealerships, discovering the map as you go with such a cool feature, the racing I wasn’t even bothered about, like the racing was an inconvenience to get me money, to go and driveround the town in a really cool convertible car and you could upgrade stuff. And I just think finding the dealerships was such a big thing because they didn’t tell you where they all were. So, I’m rambling on because the original Test Drive was a lot of fun for me and it needs to mentioned, but because of how good that was, I am very much looking forward to this next one. I mean the second one was a bit disappointing, but I think there’s a lot of potential for this to be really cool. Cause it’s, they’ve had such a long time to be looking at it.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I remember playing the PS2 version as well. Wasn’t there? No, that was quite good, but I’ve interrupted Justin.

Justin Sutton:

I was just, I was just gonna say it’s a serious, I don’t know, as well as other series I have played Test Drive’s. I remember I played one on PC where you could teleport from one car to another. Was that Test Drive Unlimited. You can like hit spacebar and then you can like zoom as a spirit or something into a different car. I have no idea. It was, it was definitely a Test Drive game. I remember that. I also remember playing a Test Drive game for like PS1 or PS2 or something like that. But I agree with you, John. I do love the, like the open world and just the uniqueness of it, you know, it’s unlike any other racing game, which is great.

John Munro:

Absolutely. I agree. And you can find little hidden parts. So there was, there was runways, you could try and jump over something to break into and drop in there in the map, there’s all sorts of little, really clever, hidden bits. And it made it, I guess the game had so much longevity because you never, ever discovered everything. You’re always working towards the next thing. The only thing that let it die and were funny enough was for me the racing and it just wasn’t that fun for whatever reason it was like. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what I’d like to see more of, because I think, you know, we’ve been. Forza Horizon is doing a good job with that kind of aspect. So it would be just good to see something else come along and yeah, I’m excited for it.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. I think, Kylotonn Games let’s see, is developing it. And so I think they’re going to use the game engine from the WRC games. So it’d be really interesting to see how that’s utilized. Weird choice. And when they last reinvigorated a series, which was Free Rally. Oh. And also Flatout. They both did those in the last five or six years. They were both a bit of a flop. So let’s hope with this one when they bring it back, it’s back to being a good game again. So fingers crossed for that, but yeah.

Justin Sutton:

John, what do you hope for when it comes to like, you know, the game itself, are you hoping for something quite arcadey or, something that’s very controller focused, something you can use a wheel on?

John Munro:

I don’t necessarily mind, I think as long as it’s fun to drive, like I’m perfectly happy with a game that’s not wheel friendly if the controller feels satisfying to drive and if it feels like it, DiRT 3, for example, that game, I went back and played on a controller and it didn’t need a wheel because it was so much fun on a controller anyway, and it was usable. So for me, it’s not necessarily about which it’s aimed at. It’s more about the quality of whatever it produces. If it’s fun on a controller, that’s it, it’s not the kind of game that’s going to be a sim, it’s not designed to be for direct drive wheels and fancy. I mean, it would be amazing if it drove like that as well. But I don’t think we can expect that. I think it needs to be, it needs to be accessible for people. So I’m fully aware of that. And I think it’s the kind of game that fans of cars would enjoy rather than just fans of racing. And so therefore I want them to strike a good balance where it feels nice in the controller. And if you can do wheel support then brilliant.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. Nice.

Justin Sutton:

And, Tom, which game are you looking forward to?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Gran Turismo 7, of course. But aside from that I think I’m looking forward to a couple of off-road games. I really like the in real life watching the Dakar Rally, which just happened in January this year. And I can’t begin to understand how difficult that must be to develop like a two-week long rally across thousands of kilometers. But I would love to see that done well, there was one in 2018, Dakar 18, funnily enough is what it was called and it wasn’t that great. Unfortunately, lots of, mainly the handling of the vehicles was fairly poor in my opinion. And the co-driver calls were often mistimed than it was written. You’d get lost in the game very often, which is never a good thing. Yeah. Well there is a lot of excuses. Yeah. It was true. I was struggling with it, but I did mercifully power through to the end, but it was deeply flawed. And so the same developers actually not gone from, I think it was initially going to be like a yearly release, but they’ve had a couple of years off, which is good. So it’d be Dakar 21. Also in the meantime, they’d been purchased by the people that also own the Snow and Mud Runner games. So I’m hoping they use that physics engine to like better replicate sand and rough terrain perhaps. And so that for me gives promise, but they might not do that and it might not work.

Justin Sutton:

Have you played spin tires, mud runner, those, those, whatever

Tom Harrison-Lord:

They’re good games.

Justin Sutton:

I haven’t gotten into it. And it’s something that I’ve always found kind of interesting. It seems like it’s really good for streaming because you’re going nice and slow. You could read chat, you know, stuff like that. It’s all kind of low speed. The challenge the quick reaction times or anything like that.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

It’s not a racing game in any way really.

Justin Sutton:

Right. But it’s got really, from what I’ve seen, it’s got great physics as you described.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Right. So that could apply great to the sand dunes, I think but whether or not they use it. Oh, I don’t know, but I hope so. And then the other one just quickly was, it’s going to be, it’s not been announced yet, but like F1 and MotoGP, WRC 10, I guess they would call it. I feel last year, that many years in the doldrums, but they’ve got the handling right at last. So it’d be interesting to see where they go from there and improving it, but that developers only got a couple of years left of the license, but I’m still looking forward to another WRC game.

Justin Sutton:

Nice. Yeah, for me, the game that I’m hopeful for this year is, yeah. It’s hope because it hasn’t been confirmed and that’s Forza Horizon 5. There’s there’s been rumors that playground games has finished Horizon 5 before, Turn 10 has finished Motorsport 8. Yep. Eight? I think that’s the one their on?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Seven.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Oh no, eight. Your right, it’s just got no number. I do apologise.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. The new, the current one is seven. The new one would be eight, but yeah, but I don’t think they’re going to release both in the same year and the last one to come out was Motorsport actually in 2019. Yeah. Motorsport came out in 2019. Motorsports 7 If I’m not mistaken, but yeah Forza Horizon 5 is essentially the raceing game I’m just most excited about whether or not it’s coming out in 2021, is a huge question mark, but it’s the next racing game that I’m really excited about. I’ve fallen in love with, Forza Horizon when I got Horizon 3 on PC, it is for me the perfect game. I don’t, I there’s just something about it, you can’t really describe why you love your favorite food, why you love your significant other, things like that. You just, it’s hard to put words to and with Forza horizon.

Justin Sutton:

I love it, love it so much.

Justin Sutton:

It just, releases those chemicals in my brain. That just makes me super duper happy when I play it. It’s on a wheel, it’s on a controller. It doesn’t matter how I play it, whether it’s against the AI, whether it’s with friends and I’m really hopeful for Horizon 5. I would assume going to be new gen. I think they are developing it for the next generation of consoles. Especially because it’s a first party game, it’s coming from Microsoft essentially. They’re the publishers on it. So they’re going to be pushing quite hard. I would assume to utilize the new power of the, of the series X and use it as, almost like a test bed or a platform to show off how good that console is. So I imagine there’s going to be a lot of working between Playground Games, Turn 10, Microsoft Studios and so on just to get it absolutely perfect.

Justin Sutton:

And I’m really, really optimistic about it. I thought four was even better than three. There’s some really weird, stupid problems with Forza Horizon 4. Like if you turn on the streamer audio mode, which disables the copyright music. It forgets that setting every time you launch the game, every single time I launched the game, I have to go in and enable streamer mode. The cut scenes are unskippable, even though I’ve seen it a bunch of times, like there was really basic things with the Forze Horizon world that it’s like, I don’t know how they’ve missed this. Surely there are people on their forums complaining almost daily about this kind of stuff. I would assume. I’m not one of them though. I don’t have time for that. It’s already like perfect when it comes for me anyway, when it comes to like physics and, and graphics and all of that kind of stuff, I think it’s exactly where it needs to be. They just need to, polish it, make it so it’s a little bit more user-friendly. I mean, have you guys played any Horizon games?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I’ve just played four.

Justin Sutton:

Okay. On PC? Or console?

Tom Harrison-Lord:

PC.

Justin Sutton:

Okay. And John?

John Munro:

Yeah, I was going to say it’s something I haven’t, but listening to your endorphin booster that you’ve gone on about here, I think I’m going to have to give it a go. Cause, I mean, the thing is I’ve told you before, like I love the early Gran Turismo games and I love the idea of, I like what you said earlier about Forza kind of taking that mantle over recently makes me very excited. I do want to play it. I think the issue for me was I was kind of more focused on the sim stuff when Horizon was coming big and I didn’t have as much time for those kinds of games. So I think it’s definitely something I’m going to look in for and especially if their bringing out something next gen, I think that’d be really cool. I love listening to your passion about it. I mean, that gets me excited to try out, so I appreciate that.

Justin Sutton:

It is faster than Gran Turismo. Like the, to go from broke to having a Ferrari is a much shorter time compared to what you would expect from the old school. Gran Turismo 2, 3, 4 you’re spending several races, several championships driving, a stock Honda civic or something like that.

Justin Sutton:

I would say Horizon. They could stand to tone it down a little. Give me a little bit less money early on and let me work for it a little bit more.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Hmm. I’m going to, completely rain on your parade now, Justin, I’m sorry. You ready? I hope you’ll speak to me again after this. I don’t think there’s a cat in hells chance that Forza Horizon 5 is coming out this year.

Justin Sutton:

Okay.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

They’ve announced and revealed the next Forza Motorsport and I know they’re different games Forza Motorsport is, I know we’re talking about Gran Turismo and stuff there, but for me Forza Motorsport is what competes with Gran Turismo. Horizon has the tune-up aspect, but they’re very, very different games. So I wouldn’t, if I was Microsoft PR department, why would I announce this game? That’s called Forza and release another game that’s called Forza before it, because I know we know the difference between Motorsport and Horizon, but does the consumer, who’s looking for a Christmas gift in the game shop if such things exist post COVID or announcement or whatever. Know for their niece or nephew, which is the right Forza game for them. Cause they both got Forza. They both start with the name Forza and they’ve already announced Forza Motorsport. So I think even if it’s finished development that won’t come out until this Motorsport one has come out first and the trailer for the Forza Motorsport was an engine, but it wasn’t gameplay, which suggests to me that that’s perhaps further away than they would like or anticipate. So maybe that that’s the one that comes out of this year. And if that doesn’t, it might not come out to 2022 and then your Horizon 5 might not come out until 2023.

Justin Sutton:

Dear God.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

With Horizon 4 they just did a next gen update for it, they’re still doing DLC. Also, suggest to me that they’re in it for the long haul and that’s not dried up. You look at Forza Motorsport 7, there are no updates or content for it anymore. So it makes sense again, that that’s the next one that’s going to be replaced. Another opinion in there. I think the Forza Motorsport has been struggling for a few years and has fallen behind.

Justin Sutton:

That’s exactly what I was about to add. I was going to say Motorsport needs love more than Horizon does.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Yeah, absolutely. For me, it’s really boring.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I bought 7,I played it for two or three hours and I was like, nope, not for me.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Every two years, they’ve got to do it. Haven’t they, they’ve got to release one every two years and sometimes you need a break to refresh it and be more creative with your thinking and then got to the point where it was just like, this year, Forza Motorsport has more cars and then the next one came up, it’s got more cars.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I’d rather have quality over quantity.

Justin Sutton:

Yeah. Yeah and Horizon has done that as well too. The number of cars in horizon is like over 500, 600. I don’t even know. It’s a, it’s an absolutely insane number. Yeah. Right. I think you might be right about that. I just hope that it’s not 2022.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

I’m so sorry.

John Munro:

The endorphin levels just went back down for Justin.

Justin Sutton:

I would assume so if I’m Microsoft, I would say to the Motorsport team, release your game this year, or we’re releasing Horizon because if the rumors are true and the Horizon team says, look, our game is done. We’re ready to go then why would you not? Because first of all, even though they have announced it, as you mentioned, the average consumer, hasn’t seen that announcement, you know what I mean? That’s not a commercial that’s running during Superbowl. It’s not in the newspaper or anything like that. So the average person doesn’t know that Motorsport 8 has been announced and stuff like that. So it’s not too late for them to turn around. I think they’re going to want to release a Forza game this year. And if Motorsport can’t be that game Horizon is the only other option.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

This year though, without announcing it at this point is going, that’s a bold call.

Justin Sutton:

Oh, that would be, that would be really weird.

John Munro:

The subsitute striker is ready to get on the pitch because the striker really underperforming and you really got to score soon.

Justin Sutton:

Totally. And I get references.

Justin Sutton:

I think that covers it. Do we want to do any quick predictions? Just before we wrap up, do we want to give any predictions of like what game we think is going to be amazing or which one we think is going to be absolute crap.

John Munro:

Yeah. I definitely, I’m going to say GranTurismo 7 and I’m going to please pray that they back me up on this, but it’s going to be a great game. I don’t know, to be honest, I’m with you. I’m not sure it’s going to be a 2021 game, but if it is, I think it’s going to be brilliant.

John Munro:

And if it’s in 2022, I will happily wait and that’s that’s, what’s going to be good for me. I’m not sure what’s going to be bad, but I really hope GT 7’s good.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Well my prediction was, just what we covered already. That Justin’s going to be very, very sad and there won’t be a Forza Horizon game this year.

Justin Sutton:

My prediction was going to be that at least relatively, you know, based on expectations, I think NASCAR 21 is going to be the surprise of the, or whatever they end up calling it. NASCAR’s 2021 video game, I think, is going to be the real surprise of the year. Just basing off, people’s expectations and stuff like that.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Interesting.

Justin Sutton:

But that’s also, that’s also optimism and hope, fingers crossed.

Tom Harrison-Lord:

Recap this 12 months time. Great idea. All right. Nice.

Justin Sutton:

Well, I think that’s a good place to wrap it up. That’s it for this week’s attraction podcast episode. Thank you for listening and watching. If you like, what you heard, please subscribe via your favorite podcast service or like, and subscribe, If you watched on YouTube, don’t forget to join us on social media at Traxion GG on most platforms, visit Traxion.gg for daily racing game updates. We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye