How is last gen era's line up of racing games so far?

Hello

I would like to share my opinions on the last generation console era's line up of racing/driving games, which consists of the PC, PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, 3DS and PS Vita.

The things what I like in the last-gen era's driving games, having the ones what I'm interested are:

• Assetto Corsa & Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Gran Turismo Sport
• Forza Motorsport 5, 6 & 7
• Forza Horizon 2, 3 & 4
• DiRT Rally 1 & 2.0
• DiRT 4 & 5
• Need For Speed Rivals, 2015, Heat & Hot Pursuit 2010 Remastered
• WRC 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9
• Distance by ReFract
• F1 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
• Ridge Racer 3D
• Pacer (R8 Games)

The things what I don't like:

• No new Project Gotham Racing for Xbox One/PC
• No new Battle Gear (Taito) for Arcades, consoles and PC
• No new Racing Jam (Konami) for Arcades, consoles and PC
• No new Sega Rally for Arcades, consoles and PC
• No new Ridge Racer for Arcades, home consoles and PC
• No new Test Drive for PS4/Xbox One/PC
• No Blur 2 for PS4/Xbox One/PC
• Motorhead won't ever get a remake or remaster for PS4/Xbox One/PC
• No Split/Second 2 PS4/Xbox One/PC
• No new Shutokou Battle/Tokyo Xtreme Racer for PS4/Xbox One/PC
• No new Initial D for PS4/Xbox One/PC
• No new Wangan Midnight for PS4/Xbox One/PC
• No new MotorStorm for PS4
• No new F-Zero for Wii U and 3DS
• No new Excite Truck for Wii U and 3DS
• No new Midtown Madness for Xbox One/PC
• No new Burnout installment for PS4/Xbox One/PC
• No new Midnight Club for PS4/Xbox One/PC
• No new WipEout installment for PS4
• Newer installment of Gran Turismo, Forza or whichever driving games may have some tracks and cars missing (Due to licensing issues or something)
• Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham Racing & Blur) closed down
• Evolution Studios (MotorStorm) closed down
• Black Rock Studios (Split/Second) closed down
• Psygnosis/Studio Liverpool (WipEout) closed down
• Wii U, PS Vita and 3DS have fewer racing/driving games compared to PS4, Xbox One and PC.

So what's your opinion?

I liked the games I played, but I feel like there wasn't enough arcadey stuff, or enough variety. Racing cars is ok and all, but I like stuff like SSX or Sonic Racing Transformed to mix things up. That's what I hope to see more of.

In the 8th generation racing games became a niche genre.

They had been a staple game for a long time, and one of the major genres since the 5th generation, because racing games tend to make for great tech demos and are easier to make look good on 3D systems because computer graphics simulate the look of cars much better and more easily than they do organic life forms, and since they tend to have limited mechanics and physics interactions.

Developers have gotten much better at making graphics look good, and complex gameplay is the norm, so racing games don't stand out the way they used to and consumer interest has dropped. Now we have a few "major" legacy series, some indie or semi-indie stuff, and some specialty developers who make games for the remaining niche audience.

All that is to say that the reason we're not getting games like Blur or Motorstorm or Split/Second anymore is because racing just isn't what it once was. Gran Turismo and Forza have their audience, and the Dirt and Dirt Rally games and WRC games and such have their audience, and of course there's Mario Kart, but everything else is pretty small time.

Ubisoft tried to make The Crew happen. It didn't.

EA kept producing Need for Speed games because it has been a major franchise for them and maybe they're still profitable with microtransactions, but they have not made a splash.

Drive Club opened its doors. Nobody wanted to be a member.

So what was good about 8th generation racing? Forza Horizon was the biggest and most important series for mainstream gamers, and the Forza Horizon games are my favorite racing games ever, so that was nice. The Dirt games were pretty good for people who like rally style stuff. Mario Kart was good. There was some good even more niche stuff, even if it wasn't as polished as the big budget games used to be.

What was bad? The absence of racing games, and especially creative racing games. Sonic Team Racing tried to do something new, but the vast majority of games that weren't little indies were either pitched right up the middle or were simulators. There was no real attempt at evolving the genre or doing weird or interesting things like Burnout or Split/Second used to. The genre is stagnant and shrinking and it needs a fighting game style renaissance.

I think the Forza Horizon series is basically the only racing series to appear in the Giant Bomb personal game of the year lists for the last generation. What does that tell you? Nothing good.

The sim stuff came to console, so there's that.

I think that the closure and consolidation of virtually all the major British racing game studios over the last generation is pretty telling of the fate of the genre. Studio Liverpool, Bizarre, Evolution, Black Rock, all gone. Criterion a shadow of its former self. Codemasters purchased by EA. Like outside of Turn 10 the British racing game development scene is more or less dead. You’ve still got some work going on elsewhere in the world, but for a good 25 years the British were the masters of the genre. Seeing them collapse like this has been really tragic.

@raven10: Playground games is the premier open world racing studio in the world right now, and includes ex-employees from a lot of those closed studios. It doesn't make up for all the closures but if you want to do an accounting of current British racing development you need to include them.

It's consolidation across the board that's done it, really. ex-Criterion heads working on Need for Speed restricted them so much. And those that didn't make it across just keep trying to make Burnout again.

I'm worried about Codemasters' future when they get purchased by EA.

@bigsocrates: I was expecting 8th gen console era to have heeps of arcade-style racers just like the 90s but it didn't happen.

I hope in 9th gen console era will have more and more arcade-style racing games to be inspired by old school ones likes Ridge Racer, Daytona USA, etc.

Also, DiRT 5 the launch title racer for PS5/Xbox Series X, which appears to be a love letter to Sega Rally, Shox: Rally Reinvented, and MotorStorm.

@gtxforza: I don't know why you would expect the 8th gen to be like the 90s. Racing games had clearly moved to a different model by the time the 7th gen was coming to an end. What I didn't expect was how much the genre would shrink after that and how low the quality of high budget racers would be. Think about how many disappointing racing mainstream racing games came out in the 8th gen. Most of the Need for Speeds. Both The Crews. Driveclub. Even Gran Turismo, while liked by many, wasn't a full entry.

Forza Horizon is the only series that consistently put out highly acclaimed and popular games during the whole gen, and if it wasn't only on Xbox it would be the biggest franchise in the genre right now. It already reviews better than the other stuff and has more media buzz.

There are lots of arcade racers popping up these days but they're either bare bones (Sonic Team Racing) or lower budget affairs. You have true indies like Hot Shot Racing and Horizon Chase Turbo and you have smaller games from actual publishers like Overpass and Gravel, but just not a lot of big budget affairs.

I don't really think Dirt 5 is a love letter to Sega Rally or Motorstorm or Shox: Rally reinvented, which is a very obscure title. It's just an arcadey rally game. It doesn't have the thin tracks or slidey physics of Sega Rally and it doesn't have the 'tude of Motorstorm. It's fine or what it is but I think it's just a Dirt game made more arcadey as an attempt to make it more commercially viable and to differentiate from the more sim based Dirt Rally series.

I will say that Dirt 5 has the best visual weather effects I've ever seen in a racing game. So it has that going for it, even though the audio mixing on the music is also the worst I've ever seen in...any game ever.

@bigsocrates: Because I wanted a nostalgic feel.

Horizon Chase is an awesome arcade racer and for Hot Shot Racing, I might give a try on that.

Gravel is okay but not as good as Sega Rally Revo IMO.

Onrush could've gone somewhere.

A profound lack of Race With Ryan in this thread smh. After developer 3DClouds.it honed their racing craft through All-Star Fruit Racing and Xenon Racer, they finally delivered a masterpiece for the ages.

@onemanarmyy: Arguably one of the top 10 racing games based on a Youtube channel of all time.

@bigsocrates: You are right, although they are currently making a Fable game, although that might be a second team within the studio. Regardless, I should have mentioned them as they probably make the best racing games going right now.

Even with them included, losing a dozen or so studios and gaining one really doesn't change the overall perspective. The industry used to support well over a dozen of these caliber of racing studios and now at best supports three or four. Even beyond the UK, you have Nintendo, Polyphony Digital, Bugbear, and Kylotonn really as your only major racing game teams.

And how about Kunos Simulazioni?

@raven10: I understand that there has been a real winnowing of the racing field, I just felt like not including Playground Games overstated the case because that's where a lot of the talent ended up. It certainly doesn't make up for the closures but like Mighty Number 9 it's better than nothing.

I am certain that Playground is making another Forza Horizon game, though. It's Microsoft's best reviewing series and when they started developing Fable they said they were adding another team to do it. There's been no indication that Microsoft is done with Forza Horizon, and nobody would be dumb enough to move it to another team.

@bigsocrates: I’ll agree with you on every front except that Mighty Number 9 isn’t better than the dump I took after single handedly eating a Taco Bell Party Box in one sitting. I would have vastly preferred nothing.

@gtxforza: They still have a bit to go before I consider them a major player. Honestly, I very nearly didn’t mention Kylotonn either. When it comes down to it neither WRC or Assetto Corsa are mainstream titles.

I see, I prefer Assetto Corsa Competizione more than GT Sport and Forza Motorsport 7 when it comes to career mode.

The new Codemasters games in general are quite good. I haven't played Dirt 5, but the Dirt Rally games and Dirt 4 were quite fun. I've played hundreds of hours of both Dirt Rally games using a wheel and they're still fun and challenging. The F1 games have improved significantly since F1 2015. They now are leaning into a more competitive mindset and have made the games more challenging. The driving now feels lightyears better and the AI is much better about not crashing into you.

Forza however, I am much less positive about. Forza 6 and 7 have been hugely disappointing for me. I even bought the Forza-themed Xbox One when it came out but did not enjoy Forza 6 at all. I didn't like that they leaned more into a curated experience rather than letting you race what you want. Forza 7 has leaned even more into that and it honestly ruined the franchise for me. The stupid cutscenes between races where they try to make you care about fictional racing drivers are both boring and way too long. I've played a few hours of Forza 7 now and it's genuinely felt like I've spent more time staring at menus, waiting for transition animations (do they really need to show the pitlane and stuff before a 3 lap race?), and watching cutscenes than actually racing in the game. Not only that but I find the AI in both Forza 6 and Forza 7 to be bad. I try to play without rewind but I ended having to use it a lot because the AI will happily crash into you, even if you do everything in your power to avoid them.

At least most of the sim games have been good like Assetto Corsa. I haven't played Forza Horizon past the first one but I'm sure those are fine too.

I don't typically play racing games but I've been playing some Forza Horizon 4 on Game Pass recently. While the game looks and plays great, I'm really put off about how much it feels like a free-to-play game despite being a fully priced product and if that's the direction this franchise is going you can count me out. Pachinko mechanics that usually give you completely worthless items such as clothes and emotes instead of anything car-related, and peddling of DLC everywhere, even the menus. Last time I had to watch a full cinematic advertisement of a DLC package with no way of skipping it before I got to play the game and that's never okay.

@apewins: Want to know what’s even worse? They have the same DLC ads for the DLC in Forza Horizon 3, but the DLC has been delisted so you have to spend 90 seconds watching an ad for DLC you can’t actually buy. And mind you I have the version that cost like $150 when it came out.

Turn 10 Studios made SIX Forza games in the same span Polyphony Digital took to make a multiplayer focused Gran Turismo game.

SIX!

I believe that FIA was responsible for forcing Polyphony Digital to make a multiplayer-focused GT game.

Hmm... no wonder why GT Sport multiplayer is so good plus having penalty system too which punishes rammers and wall riders.

A lot of sim/simcade players hates rammers and wall riders in general.

All I know rammers and wall riders in sim/simcade racers, in general, are just rude and selfish.

I've owned Forza Horizon 4 since day one on Xbox One and it's a good game so far.