Opinion: Why Assetto Corsa Rally needs mods to survive long-term

So, Assetto Corsa Rally is here, and it’s a triumph.

Supernova Games Studios has created that rare thing: a pure rally sim with beautiful graphics, immersive sounds and, above all else, a driving experience that both challenges and delights in equal measure.

However, in my review, I raised concerns about the game’s laser-scanned stages. Sure, they look realistic and feel bone-shakingly brutal to drive on, but there are only four of them currently, with 120 Km of roads expected by the game’s v1.0 release.

And that’s the crux of the matter: rally games need a tranche of stages to remain fresh and exciting. 

Endurance

120 Km of unique rally routes equates to much less than a standard WRC round. I think this is simply not enough to hold rally enthusiasts’ long-term attention.

Part of the beauty of rally is tackling stretches of road that are not well-known to the driver and co-driver. Not knowing for sure what’s around the next corner and relying entirely on pacenotes separates the good drivers from the great.

Naturally, some esports professionals will go to great lengths to memorise all stages across all rally games – I’m sure even Sébastien Ogier has a mental rolodex of his favourite tests – but for the majority, that’s simply not feasible.

In the glorious Group B era, rallies could total around 1,000 Km and run over several days (the Safari could run up to 5,000 Km!), with maps being used instead of pacenotes (imagine recceing that!). 

Such tests of endurance may be a stretch too far for AC Rally, but hardcore rally fans, who undoubtedly make up a large portion of the game’s playerbase, won’t accept anything less.

Rallysimfans

Richard Burns Rally’s Rallysimfans mod is in this position already, featuring hundreds of stages across thousands of virtual kilometres – admittedly, following ~20 years of community support and after Warthog delivered modding tools post-release.

With each RSF mod update, anything between five and ten new stages are added to its roster.

Matching the quality of AC Rally’s incumbent laser-scanned stages would represent a whole new level of effort, but it can be done. Take Biskupice 2004 as an example. It was created for RBR by Martin Bujáček, Lorenzo Clerici, Silvio Kuhm and Jan Kadeřábek using laser-scan data, and its quality surpassed anything seen in RBR, matching the real-world stage 1:1.

Biskupice was then usurped by the incredible Gabiria-Legazpi 2004, by Come Over Gaming and the JLStages, heavily featuring input from the aforementioned Kadeřábek and Clerici, once again proving that quality won’t necessarily be an issue for community-made stages in AC Rally.

Getting to grips with porting and updating community-made stages to Unreal Engine 5 may be a bigger issue, but I wouldn’t underestimate the talents of the passionate virtual rally community, especially given all the advancements RSF has produced for RBR (for more details on these, check out our 20th anniversary of RBR article)

Assetto Corsa Rally modding prospects

So, will modding be available in AC Rally?

“Mod support is something we’d like to offer in the future, but for now we’re fully focused on the Early Access phase,” stated a Supernova spokesperson to Traxion.

Modding is therefore on the developer’s wishlist, but remains unconfirmed.

Assetto Corsa Evo, the other Early Access racing sim in the franchise, already has modding support in the works, so it makes perfect sense for its sister title to offer similar functionality.

Supernova plans to add more official stages to the game after its version 1.0 release, but we don’t know to what extent, so mods can play a crucial role in keeping the game alive long-term, which is why RBR continues to be the connoisseur’s choice today.

Laser-scanned legal minefield

There’s a crucial difference between recreating famous rally stages versus race tracks: rally stages are almost always public roads, and generally don’t require a licence fee to produce, potentially negating any legal issues.

Laser-scan data is becoming more commercially available, too, with Kunos even buying data for the roads around the Nürburgring Nordschleife to use in AC EVO. 

rFactor 2’s ‘Third Party Approved’ Zolder project was created by Frederick Alonso as a passion project in collaboration with Belgian survey specialists, Teccon, highlighting how the community can play an important role in modern sims.

Perhaps it’ll be possible to convert RBR stages to AC Rally minus laser-scan data and without compromising their quality, fast-tracking new content to the game?

For now, though, we must remember that AC Rally is in Early Access and won’t be ‘finished’ for many months. 

However, for it to become the de facto rally sim of choice for years to come, I believe it’ll need help from modders.