Above: Mind the curves,
Project Cars
For Project Cars, I spoke to creative director Andy Tudor of Slightly Mad Studios.
The Numbers
Out Nov. 18 for PS4, PC, and Xbox One. The Wii U and Steam OS versions will be out sometime in 2015 for $60. Project Cars supports the Occulus Rift Virtual Reality headset, and Tudor said he is working with Sony on Morpheus VR compatibility as well.
Unique features
For Tudor, Project Cars prevailing feature is that it is nothing like the other three games coming out.
Forza Horizon 2 is very youth-centric, he said. Driveclub is an arcade game. The Crew is in the middle of those two.
Tudor said that Project Cars is on the other end near the Forza Motorsport and Grand Turismo side of the spectrum. He considers Project Cars a competitor with those games and not any of the ones coming out. It operates in an authentic, realistic space, he said.
Tudor went on to call Project Cars the only true motorsport game out this year, complete with authentic weather, pit stops, and time-of-day changes.
When asked if he felt like an underdog going up against three triple-A games, Tudor laughed. He said that his team is prominently British, so they have a history of being the underdog.
Tudor added that Project Cars is not an underdog; it is a dark horse.
Project Cars is also the only crowd-funded title in this year’s car-game crop, which Tudor elaborated on when asked why players should pick his game.
Cars
Like The Crew, Project Cars doesn’t have an exact car number, but it does have a much more specific direction as far as which cars will make it in.
Its website elaborates on each of the types of vehicles found in Project Cars. These types include track-day cars, which are low-to-the-ground vehicles built only for racing.
Supercars, which include brands such as McClaren and Ferrari, are among the fastest street-legal cars around — and they each cost a fortune.
The website mentions that the LeMans prototype cars found in the game are the fastest cars available on Earth. It also has Touring cars, which are souped-up two-door cars; and open-wheel cars, which are similar to those found in the Grand Prix events.
Tudor added that each car with have some very detailed tuning options.
Why should players buy your game over the competitors?
Tudor: We have a confidence level because we have been working alongside the community. We have allowed players to play Project Cars from our very first build.
We speak to our players every day, not people in suits. Our players can request cars and tracks. They send in photos of cars, tracks or great paint jobs from their hometowns and we put them into the game.
The level of communication and interaction in Project Cars is unmatched. Games take so long and cost so much that you can’t afford to make a game in the dark and hope that it is actually any good.
If you make it alongside people that are playing it, they provide daily feedback. This gives us a massive level of confidence.
Screenshots
