A bit of a cryptic tweet from the official Thrustmaster account posted on Wednesday. In the tweet, Thrustmaster sheds new light on their upcoming and anticipated Direct Drive Racing Wheel Base. While there isn’t much to go off of in the tweet, a promise to say something before the end of 2021 was fulfilled, I suppose.
A new social media campaign with the hashtag #STARTINGLIGHTS has Thrustmaster dropping their “first clue” surrounding their latest project. The news is that all Thrustmaster add-ons will be compatible with the upcoming Direct Drive base for PC. While that’s not particularly surprising, we also got notice of when the next piece of information is coming. That will be 20th January in 2022, when the second clue is slated to be announced.
Per the announced roadmap back in August, Thrustmaster posted that they hoped to unveil the Direct Drive Wheel Base, along with a slew of other products like the T248 Hybrid Drive and new pedals before the end of the year. While this isn’t that full announcement, I’m guessing by the graphic that this will be one of what looks to be at least five announcements before the wheel base is fully unveiled.
There’s one row of lights that are lit and four rows of lights unlit on the graphic. The visuals seem to be replicating a set of lights often used in racing series with standings starts, such as Formula 1. I’d have to assume that the second row of lights are going to be lit up as well when the next announcement happens on 20th January.
Keep in mind that the expected Direct Drive Wheel base that Thrustmaster has cooking up is only going to be compatible for PC racers. It’s great that all peripherals will work with it, but they’ll still be slightly behind their direct competitor Fanatec with this limitation. Fanatec recently revealed the Gran Turismo DD Pro which works for both PlayStation 5 and PC users, plus all of the other Direct Drive products they already have for PC players.
With that said, Thrustmaster’s first foray into the Direct Drive world could completely blow that all out of the water. We won’t know until we get our hands on one, or at least until more information is announced. Stay tuned to Traxion as we’ll be on top of the next clue that’s expected in just over three weeks time, when the next row of lights in the #STARTINGLIGHTS are expected to be lit. Keep it Pinned.
