NASCAR 25 game talks the talk

The pieces of the puzzle look to be falling into place for the upcoming NASCAR game.

Back in October 2023, it was announced that iRacing had purchased the rights to create such a title from Motorsport Games.

That provides a relatively short window to create something from scratch to meet the 2025 deadline.

Although, of course, in early 2022, it happened to have purchased Monster Games – in various guides, it had produced seven NASCAR games over the past 24 years.

It last created NASCAR Heat 4, before Motorsport Games took the reins for Heat 5 and the ill-fated NASCAR 21: Ignition.

“Ever since I joined iRacing, I knew there was a chance that I would be able to revisit the NASCAR licence,” said Rich Garcia, Senior Vice President and General Manager at iRacing’s Minnesota outpost, formerly Monster Games.

“I was so thrilled about it, that I met with the lead designer. We spent a year ahead of time working on design every single day to try to see if we can make the best NASCAR product that we’ve ever done.” 

That’s quite the claim, with 2002’s Dirt to Daytona and the Heat games revered by fans of America’s premier stock car category.

It also possibly hints at a development curve that extends back further than the licence-acquiring process.

NASCAR 25 is seemingly console-only, much like Monster and iRacing’s World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing series and will use, perhaps controversially without seeing gameplay, the Unreal Engine for graphics – a technology that some racing game studios have moved away from in recent years.

“We’ve got iRacing laser-scanned assets, we’ve got the iRacing physics experts, you put all of that together and we have the perfect recipe for success,” said John Schneider, Director of Development and Production.

During the five-minute talking-head promotional video, no clear shots of the game are provided, although the console emphasis is clear with a PlayStation 5 DualSense device on show on numerous occasions.

Ultimately, this is just words. Finely crafted words – we’ll see how the game progresses and if it walks the walk next year.

NASCAR 25 game at a glance

• Developed by iRacing Minnesota aka Monster Games
• Will mix Unreal Engine graphics with property physics
• Set to make use of some existing iRacing assets
• Possible PlayStation and Xbox only, 2025 release window