It’s an overcast Tuesday in the English midlands, and following an invite from Straight4 Studios, Traxion video supremo Oasley Beattie and I have arrived at the Silverstone circuit.
We have zero expectations. Ahead of our visit, the nascent sim racing outfit was tight-lipped about what, or who, would be here.
My stream of guesses via WhatsApp have been rebuffed.
What we do know, however, is that a slew of glamorous supercars and historic racing machines will be driving around the circuit today. The Supercar Driver Secret Meet meet is underway, teenagers lining the track access roads to snap the latest models (and, awkwardly, my 12-year-old Peugeot…) like an automotive Milan Fashion Week equivalent.
As jobless Formula 1 engineer Adrian Newey saunters by, we spot erstwhile Stig Ben Collins arriving into the pitlane, smoke billowing from the Ferrari F8 Spider’s carbon ceramic brakes. A familiar-looking F8, at that too.
The vehicle in question is Ian Bell’s, posted to X last year upon purchase. The founder, and leader, of several racing video games and simulations. He’s not alone, as the giant pitlane banners attest.
Straight4 Studios, creators of the upcoming title GTRevival, have some news.
There’s a new name for the game – Project Motor Racing – and a brand new publisher, GIANTS Software.
A partnership that marks a journey into the unknown for the Swiss-based company, famed for its lionised Farming Simulator franchise. The first released in 2008, spanning a long-running series that continues – Farming Simulator 25 launches in November.
On paper, diversifying from hay bale collection to clipping apices at Sebring is quite the departure.
“We totally see a correlation,” says Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GIANTS, Christian Ammann, to Traxion when asked if there is audience crossover between farming and racing.
“If you look at the dedication of the community and the players, that’s absolutely similar.
“People who are so into that topic. We call this ‘their hobby is our game’ and that’s something we also want to achieve with the new title too.
“[Sim racing] is an interesting market. It’s very established and we are here to compete. That’s our goal and, of course, it will be tough. But that’s what we want to challenge.”
On the one hand, GIANTS is not experienced with the racing genre. On the other, it deals with a simulation-focused audience and it handles everything itself. And I mean everything including publishing.
“We built up a self-publishing department over many, many, years,” explains Ammann.
“It’s not just a publishing department, we needed a marketing department, we needed people for customer support. Also, publishers are usually responsible for quality assurance, so we built up a big quality assurance team too.
“In the end, we also had to build a physical distribution network to distribute the games worldwide and put them into stores. Our games are not only sold digitally, quite a big part is still physical sales.
“Ultimately, if you only do that for one single title, the overhead costs are quite expensive. So it makes sense from a business standpoint to do multiple titles.”
It sounds like an ideal set-up for someone looking for support with their next release. Which, following a breakdown of the initial deal with Embracer Group’s PLAION last year, the Straight4 team was in need of.
“Somebody we knew introduced us and explained they were looking for a publisher. We had a lot of talks and came to a partnership [for Project Motor Racing],” recalls Ammann.
“When we announced that we are publisher, and also that we could prove we said is true with the success of the titles we released, a lot of developers approached us.
“But we were very picky because we wanted something that’s really at the quality level that we have with Farming Simulator.”
For now, without images, gameplay or even graphics engine confirmation, Project Motor Racing remains an enigma. Tantalisingly, however, GIANTS must have seen something that convinced them to take a leap of faith into a new sub-genre.
Expectations must be high following prior achievements. No pressure, Straight4…
Project Motor Racing at a glance
- New sim racing driving video game for PC and console
- Developed by Straight4 Studios – consisting of prior Project CARS, Need for Speed and GTR developers, led by Ian Bell
- Published by Farming Simulator originators GIANTS Software
- It was initially called GTR Revival, then GTRevival and now Project Motor Racing
- Uses a ground-up unique vehicle physics system called Hadron
- Originally slated for a later 2024 release and using the Unreal Engine for graphics, this plan has been replaced. A new graphics engine will be announced imminently and the release window is not yet known
- Further information is expected next month from the Gamescom event in Germany
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