How Assetto Corsa Rally is being developed by a brand new team of racing game veterans

• Supernova Games Studios was born in 2021 to make an Assetto Corsa rally game spin-off
• It will use a mix of customised Unreal Engine 5 for its graphics and proprietary Kunos Simulazioni vehicle dynamics systems
• Those physics, however, have been modified to better suit the stages – here’s what has changed

Assetto Corsa’s ebullient figurehead, Marco Massarutto, is informing a crowd of media and content creators that the beloved franchise has surpassed 20 million players.

It’s the Thursday night before the SimRacing Expo in an unsuspecting Dortmund, and little did we know that he’s about to drop a bombshell – alongside EVO, another Assetto Corsa game has been in development.

A trailer announcing Assetto Corsa Rally to the world is played on a large screen as my colleague, John Munro, and I jot down notes. We watch, mouths agape, thumbs typing, as a Lancia Delta HF Integrale sprays Welsh gravel.

The industry rumour mill had gone into overdrive about a potential rally spin-off, but the 505 Games-published title had successfully remained a secret up until this keynote. And even then, it wasn’t clear who would actually create the game.

Surely the AC originators, Kunos Simulazioni, couldn’t take on another project, with EVO already running behind schedule?

“Compromise is not part of the DNA of Assetto Corsa,” posited Massarutto.

“That’s why four years ago, under the 505 Games umbrella, a new development team was created: Supernova Games Studios.

“This team is formed by passionate guys, talented people. They have very deep skills in producing racing games and using the Unreal Engine technology at its very best.

“We created a special and exclusive technical partnership with Supernova and we [Kunos] shared with them, for the very first time, our Assetto Corsa engine, our knowledge, our know-how, our data. We put them in the best possible condition to work for four years on a dedicated rally simulation.”

Then Irvin Zonca, Rally’s Game Director, and colleagues walked on stage. The bespectacled Italian has worked on over 40 games at Milestone, many using Unreal Engine, a technology this new title will utilise for its graphics.

A genuine rally fan, Zonca later showed me images of some rally cars he’d been near recently and was part of the team behind some prior WRC games and Sébastien Loeb Rally Evo – a game with the fundamentals in place, but lacking the necessary polish a sequel could have brought.

Now, at last, the softly-spoken game creator is leading a rally simulation project he tried to create at Milestone. His dream, finally realised.

A new rally-focused development team

While an outsider may look at the brand name and assume it was the same people behind all Assetto Corsa games, that’s not the case for Rally. Supernova is leading on this, although the franchise custodian, Kunos, is still involved to a degree.

“We’ve been in touch on a regular basis, especially in the last two years to make sure that this product will be a 100% Assetto Corsa title,” explained Massarutto to Traxion.

“We’ve also been involved in game testing – it’s a dirty job, but it has to be done, and it was quite a pleasure as they [Supernova] have done just an amazing job.

“We share data and feedback on what, in our opinion, was needed to keep the DNA of the Assetto Corsa franchise, and they’ve done a perfect job, honestly.”

What we saw at the German event is a far cry from where the project was in the early stages.

“Supernova Games Studios was formed in 2021, and at the time, it was just three people,” highlighted Zonca to Traxion.

“Then we grew as a studio with its main purpose to work on Assetto Corsa Rally.

“The team was developed since those early days because we had to do three things: Create a team, build the technology and then build the game, and of course, everything intertwines.”

“Now, we are a team of veteran game developers with a strong passion for sim racing and motorsport in general, and of course, rally.”

Kunos physics system, modified for rally

The new stage-based driving experience will use a customised and modified version of the aforementioned Unreal tech stack to power its graphics.

Under the skin, while it started with Kunos’ proven vehicle dynamics recipe, this is another area where personalisation has taken place. After all, a gravel stage has different properties than, say, the Nürburgring.

“To give you some examples of what we did, suspension systems are now custom-built to fully reproduce one-to-one all the links and elastic elements that compose the system, so that we can really gather all the forces that come from the tyres to the steering wheel directly.

“We use custom differentials for each type of drivetrain for all the different cars in the game. We now simulate the airflow in the intakes, and that allows us to vary the power output depending on the altimetry [altitude] of the special stages and even set up the right boost for each different car, such as turbochargers or volumetric compressors [think superchargers], like in the Lancia 037.

“Brakes are now simulated as modular systems that work connected, such as pads, rotors and callipers, so that the drivers can set up their car in a way they prefer for the next special stage, depending on the road conditions.

“And of course, the tyre model has been developed to support loose surfaces such as gravel, snow and ice.”

The initial impressions of both the Traxion team and the wider SimRacing Expo visiting crowd were overwhelmingly positive, based on brief hands-on sessions with a work-in-progress build. It’s not just the public who are impressed…

“This partnership allows us [Kunos] to evaluate some solutions they have applied to suspension and tyre models, and the way they use other things,” continued Massarutto.

“We have even been a little bit envious, because, as you don’t need 15 AI drivers, you can use the CPU in order to go deeply into the physics model, and I think this is something you can really feel through the steering wheel.”

Assetto Corsa Rally will release on PC first and in early access, with just 10 cars and two rally locations (with additional stage layout variations) on 13th November. It is expected that this roster of content and features will expand through 2026, with no timeline on a final Version 1.0 release. Console versions are also already in development.