Good gateway racing games?

Watching the GT Sport quicklook left me thinking, is there a game like this but really good and for regular people? I played some Dirt 4 early this year and that game does a great job with its tutorials and teaching how rally racing actually works. Which is in addition to its decent career stuff and adjustable difficulty/handling. Unless I'm missing something ,these type of accessibility options and teaching tools don't seem to be the standard.

So basically what are the approachable modern racing games? Is F1 2017 good for people willing to learn about F1? Is Project Cars 2 secretly amazing? Do I need to know what Assetto Corsa even means to appreciate it?

Or bonus question, forget modern or new, whats just a good and approachable racing game?

Mario Kart! xD

Forza Horizon 3 is the best "middle of the road" between sim and arcade. I'd recommend that. GT4 is still the GOAT though.

There are plenty of good assists in most modern sim racing games so that anyone can have a good time. I like Project CARS 2, but that requires a bit of research to find the best controller settings. I haven't played much of Forza, but that also has good assists. If you want a recentish game with plenty of single player content, I would recommend Project CARS 2, provided you can google 'best controller settings for Project CARS 2'. I don't have experience with the F1 games, but they seem to be the hardest to get into. Assetto Corsa is great on PC if you can run it on there with great mod support. But I'd recommend PC2 simply due to the amount of options you have to make it really easy.

In my eyes there are three categorizations of racing games depending on how much they focus on fun to realism:

- Arcade where the focus is on the fun of the experience example games include Daytona USA, Sega Rally Championship, Need for Speed series, Dirt 2

- Simulation where the focus is on the more accurate driving model. These are typically on PC though now that is changing with some console entries. This includes games like Asseto Corsa, iRacing, rFactor series, Dirt Rally and Project Cars

- Simcade where they have a foot in both camps. This includes game series like Gran Turismo, and Forza, and F1 series.

If you like Dirt 4 because of the assists I think most new games should have similar options nowadays. Even pcars and corsa have a bunch of assist options, though the learning curve is still a bit steeper than others. I would think jumping into any of the new GT or Forza series would fit your bill quite well. Though the new GT focuses on multiplayer if you like that sort of thing while Forza focuses on the car collecting angle.

Echoing a few people here, you can't go wrong with any of the Forza Horizon games. However, if the sim-y aspects of GT look interesting to you, I'd also recommend the mainline Forza series. They are really good at adapting the level of simulation to your particular wants, and they come with a healthy scoop of car porn to keep you progressing through the races. Forza 3 was my first sim racer and it completely turned me around on the genre. I believe Forza 6 Apex is free on PC and Horizon 3 has a demo, so it can't hurt to give them a shot.

I think that even the games that appear to be firmly in the hardcore sim category can be tuned to suit newer players if you are willing to play around with some options. Project Cars 2 has a good range of assists as well as a big variety of cars so you can easily move around as you get better. Assetto Corsa is great on PC if you are willing to dive into the mod scene since the basic lineup of cars and tracks is a bit limited (which is all thats available on console so I wouldn't recommend it).

I enjoy the F1 games and it helps with getting to know to the tracks especially some of the more famous corners. Gives you a bit of insight on race weekends and you can make it pretty intense to have a "full" race experience. Plus listening to Shift-F1/Alt-F1 while cruising the track is just an added bonus. F1 2017 was a great installment to jump into.

For the bonus question, Burnout Paradise remains one of the most stellar games of that generation.

Another vote for Forza Horizon.

Always thought I kinda disliked racing games untill I tried GT6 with all assists off. Turns out I dont give a shit about the 'racing' but LOVE the aspect of fighting against the physics and trying to keep my car under control. If winning isnt your nr1 priority I'd actually recommend trying something sim-like without assists. Unexpectedly the biggest thing assists do for me is muddy up what Im doing wrong. I need to immediately feel the consequences of my actions otherwise I dont learn haha.

Totally possible you'd hate it but as someone who doesn't even give a shit about real cars i never expected 'sim racing' to be what would get me into racing games but turns out it was exactly what I needed.

Gt 6 is definitely the easiest sim I've played but if you still have a ps3 I'd recommended it greatly. The driving lessons in it are pretty good, theres a LOT of variety, its a big game, and most importantly it plays like a dream.(I may still prefer it over newer games)

Its especially great if you'd end up getting a wheel but its also really good with just a normal ass controller.

Cant speak for Forza, never owned any xbox except the original.

Project Gotham Racing 2

If you don't care about modern, Burnout 3: Takedown , Burnout Revenge and Burnout Paradise are the best racing games I've ever played. The original NFSU 1 and 2 are good as well but Burnout was in a league of it's own