I first played Rennsport in 2022, and since then, other sim racing games have been thought of, gone through early access and then been released. Yet, in that time, this title still isn’t fully available.
This long and arduous gestation period is set to end soon, all being well, and during Gamescom, I was able to test it not only on PC, but PlayStation 5. An Xbox Series X was also there running the driving platform.
It marks a significant point of differentiation between it and some other sim racing releases it is aiming at – on consoles at the Version 1.0 release, with cross-platform play (and progression). Some other games with remain resolutely PC only, while further contemporaries won’t make the console jump until later.
How we got here
A quick recap for those not in the loop. This is a new (ish) sim racing driving game, initially aimed squarely at the likes of iRacing, with large, shiny, in-person esports events with some of the world’s best drivers. Competition was seemingly the main goal.
Instead of working away in private, it decided to take the bold step of developing in public through these pinnacle events – but it’s been a bit like me trying to build IKEA furniture in Trafalgar Square. Things have progressed slowly, and there have been some hiccups along the way.
They moved from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5 mid-development. There was a closed beta, an open beta and then free-to-play early access, each with expensive founders’ packs and virtual currency bundles.
It has a motorsport-themed car roster, a mixture of real and fantasy tracks, the latter converted from Assetto Corsa community-made mods, and a native, in-game, multiplayer ranking system.
Earlier in the year, French publishing giant Nacon picked up the title for its console release, which is for both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S and alongside Version 1.0 on PC.
A single-player mode will be a series of mid-race scenario challenges, and we saw some PlayStation trophies rewarding you for reaching an in-game level. Every time you hit the track or win a race, it will help towards these goals.
Outside of that, dynamic weather systems, VR support and driver swaps are slated for post-release updates.
That does sound like it may be light on some content and features…
A gap in the market
However, if you are a Gran Turismo 7 player, you may be one of the growing number of discontented aiming their ire at Polyphony Digital’s car tribute thanks to a lack of present-day racing cars.
Rennsport has a comparatively tiny roster, but it includes two current LMDh cars, some up-to-date TCR machinery and even the virtual debut of the 2026-specification Porsche 911 GT3 R.
So, if real-world racing machines are your main interest, and you won a PS5, you start to see a window of opportunity for Nacon and Competitiron Company’s racer.
Mercifully, it will also ditch the free-to-play model come launch, too. Instead, it will be a regular retail release, with one price encompassing all of the base game – that applies to PC but also the consoles, and for PS5 and Xbox, there will be a physical game version available too.
Then there will be an optional Deluxe Edition that will include one extra car, the Porsche 911 GT3 R rennsport and one extra track, the Nurburgring Nordschleife (yup, this venue is currently locked behind this edition), plus access to two future DLC packs.
As for that DLC, the first two packs will be Endurance Classics Part 1 and Touring Classics Part 1. The 1983 Porsche 956 Group C racer will be in the first, and retro DTM cars are expected in the latter, with the full lineup expected later.
Oh, and the Ford Mustang GT3 we drove in this test is a pre-order bonus.
It’s definitely a thing
So with that in mind, how does it drive? Well, in a word, benign. It’s very easy and straightforward to drive the GT3 machines, if lacking in ultimate feedback or on-edge adrenaline in this particular build and hardware combination.
Full disclosure, the game was a work-in-progress, it was on a developer PS5 console and using a work-in-progress PlayStation compatible direct drive Revosim wheel base.
In many ways, this setup at the Gamescom event was the vanilla ice cream of vehicle dynamics – there’s nothing wrong with that, but neither is it particularly scintillating. It drives, it sounds, it is still being developed, and we’ll be sure to test it again closer to release.
Speaking of which, we know it is going through certification presently, and the aim is Q4 this year. One of the aforementioned DLC packs has a December timeline, so it must be before then, and we hear it could be the end of October or early November, depending on that process.
If you had one shot or one opportunity…
I can speak to how it ran on the dev build, and for the base (non-Pro) PS5, it looked like a solid 60 frames per second around Spa-Francorchamps on a 4K monitor. There was some of that tell-tale Unreal shimmer to some trackside detail, and the grass ‘popping up’ just in front of the car was distracting.
Otherwise, the environment was detailed, smooth and virtually impossible to distinguish from a PC version with the naked eye.
The team is targeting upscaled 4K at 60 fps on the standard PS5 and Xbox Series X, it’s currently running around 40 fps on Xbox Series S and the PS5 Pro will run at native 4K.
I did witness someone play with a DualSense, and while a gamepad user will receive the same physics (and I’m told PC and console users will not notice different dynamics either), they will be aided by some ‘smoothing’ behind the scenes to match wheel users.
Still, I’m yet to see AI rival behaviour, fully understand the single-player mode or test the cross-platform netcode. With a bit of luck, that could be the case as it nears this ‘Q4’ launch.
For now, however, I’m left with the feeling that working on console versions was the right call, and if it runs as well as it should upon release, Rennsport may have found the market it has been desperately hunting for over the past three years.
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