The well-known and popular iRacing establishment got a little bit bigger on Wednesday. It was announced yesterday (22nd December) that iRacing had acquired racing game developer Orontes Games, a German developer in the simulation racing game sphere. Currently working with their Early Access game DRAG, the Orontes Games team led by Christian Folkers and Thorsten Folkers will join the iRacing workforce to “continue to work on their game engine, develop additional games, as well as bring their expertise and technology to iRacing,” per the press release.
The DRAG game runs off of their in-house Orontes Engine, a proprietary game engine that features “high fidelity next generation graphics” as well as “advanced vehicle physics” for off-road racing. With the acquisition, iRacing now has a second racing game title with their name attached to it, the first and only other one to this point being the simulator under the same name, iRacing.
From the Steam page for DRAG, the Early Access title “is an offroad racing game introducing 4CPT vehicle physics (4-way contact patch traction technology).” iRacing already has off-road racing, in the form of dirt oval and dirt road disciplines. One thing I noticed in playing the DRAG demo (the demo is free on Steam) is that these off-road courses have a bit of wetness in certain areas, and the cars would drive differently depending on the terrain. Also, the tires visually change from new to dirty, and water droplets will splash up on screen.
Speculating for the moment, but I feel that by adding on the Orontes team to the dev side of the company, iRacing could further develop and refine their off-road racing program as it is. Right now, the dirt side is rather one dimensional as it’s either tacky or slicked off surfaces. Adding in moisture is another element that could change how different courses race and change throughout.
This could also help with the development of rain on the service. We all know that it’s due at some point. Also, specifically looking at the 4CPT vehicle physics that DRAG has, could this help develop the next new tire model as well? Only time will tell to see what this does for iRacing in the future. I’m also intrigued to see how iRacing could influence the future full release of DRAG, which would essentially be their first racing title under their name besides their own. The Orontes side of the team is still committed to making that a complete masterpiece.
We’ll keep a lookout for the future development of everything as iRacing and their new partners speed into the new year together. What do you think this acquisition does for both parties? Let’s speculate together in the comments below!
