Assetto Corsa EVO has published their first official trailer just about 24 hours ago. In this timespan, the YouTube video uploaded by Kunos Simulazione themselves already garnered over 500 thousand views. While not necessarily proving that people demand a replacement for the soon 11-year-old Assetto Corsa, it definitely proves there is huge interest.
The Trailer Itself
Let’s start off with the trailer itself. If you haven’t seen it already, here it is:
Quite a lot of details and pieces of content can already be seen here. Especially the graphical fidelity of Kunos’ new graphics engine is showcased using the reflections.
A wide selection of content has already been showcased as well. A few circuits, even what looks like open roads and last-but-not-least a grand selection of different cars to drive can be seen.
However, let’s talk about the milestone this trailer achieved.
500k Views in 24 Hours is Amazing!
In order to explain why this amount of views is so extraordinary, let’s throw out a few examples from the sim racing scene.
- Rennsport Closed Beta Trailer: 50000 views since June 6th, 2023 (Over a year!)
- Assetto Corsa Competizione Trailer: 280000 views since October 24th, 2019 (Almost 5 years!)
- Automobilista 2 Announcement Teaser: 168000 views since May 24th, 2019 (Over 5 years!)
- iRacing’s most viewed trailer: 913000 views since August 4th, 2016 (Over 8 years!)
Now, to be fair, Assetto Corsa Evo will not be purely a racing sim. Taking over from Assetto Corsa, it is slated to be more of a “driving sim” with racing possible too. So, let’s look at a few stats from other car games too:
- ExoCross Gameplay Trailer: 320000 views since July 8th, 2024 (Almost 3 months!)
- TDU Solar Crown IGN Trailer: 550000 views since April 21st, 2021 (Over 3 years!)
- Forza Horizon 5 Official Announce Trailer: 11mil views since June 13th, 2021 (Over 3 years!)
- Gran Turismo 7 Announcement Trailer: 11mil views since June 11th, 2020 (Over 4 years!)
- Need for Speed Unbound Official Reveal Trailer: 6mil views since October 6th, 2022 (Almost 2 years!)
The interest in Assetto Corsa EVO seems as high as for some of the biggest car game franchises out there. Arguably, out of the more viewed game trailers on the list, the new Italian simulator will be the most realistic in how the driving feels.
I will say that the comparison here might not be the fairest because it has long been known that Assetto Corsa EVO is in development. For a long time, people in the community have speculated what would come. Some of the other games on the list might publish trailers sooner in the development cycle. The fact still remains, though, that 500 thousand views in just under 24 hours is a grand achievement for the Italian developer.
Will This Mean Assetto Corsa EVO Will Sell Well?
The interest is definitely there, and now that we know the games’ early access release date (16th of January, 2025), all that remains is for the game to sell well. But will it?
At the moment of writing, Assetto Corsa EVO is rank #87 on Steam’s top wishlisted games. That lands the title only after 2 other car-related titles with more wishlists. One of the two is the ill-fated “Heart of Russia” DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2, which was delayed in response to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. The other title with more wishlists is JDM: Japanese Drift Master, what looks to be an open-world drifting game set in Japan.
Now those games will not necessarily take away from Assetto Corsa EVO’s potential sales next year, but the JDM game will have a similar audience.
A large part of Assetto Corsa is, surprisingly, drifting and traffic servers. Some maps even exist that play in Japan-inspired areas. And it looks like the Assetto Corsa EVO trailer hints at traffic being a thing from the get-go. Looking at the public road scene with the Morgan 3-Wheeler does make it look suspiciously like the car going in the other direction might be AI traffic.
Including this feature is a logical move from Kunos. However, it might directly compete with the JDM game in that regard, then. Of course, differences will still be that JDM will have a story, while Assetto Corsa EVO presumably won’t, but instead will have many other game modes. Also, buying one doesn’t mean one cannot buy the other one.
If this competitor is the only one to worry about, Assetto Corsa EVO will have little to worry about when it comes to sales. There is one aspect that might affect how well it does more, however.
What Will Early Access Look Like?
The big question at the moment is about early access. Why do they plan on entering early access? Why do they not instantly full-release?
There are a few possibilities here.
Content Is Not Ready Yet
A likely reason is that the systems themself already work but content is lacking for a final release. In this scenario, we can immediately enjoy everything the game has to offer, but only in a limited capacity. For example: We could only start out with 3 racing circuits and 1 free-roam map. In addition, it’s just the trailer’s cars.
Further content would have to be added to warrant a full release. This is the most optimistic view, I will admit.
Features Are Not Ready Yet
On the other hand, this situation might be similar to Le Mans Ultimate, where the early access release was because some promised features weren’t ready yet.
In this case we might not have the full availability of game modes, but then again we don’t even yet know which game modes are supposed to be in the game. It might be, though that some essential stuff is still missing, like racing AI, that prevents Kunos from branding it a full release.
Nothing Is Ready Yet
Putting the two together and making the public act as play testers is the third possibility. The game may not have enough content, neither may it have all the features and the features that ARE included might be bug-ridden.
If this is the reality, let’s just hope it’s not too bad.
Why Does This Matter?
In the end, what we need is a viable product that can be used and that doesn’t turn off people with interest in Assetto Corsa EVO. As long as they can manage a mostly functional early access release in January, Assetto Corsa EVO has all potential to be an instant hit.
The only thing it would need is modding support from the start and the floodgates would open to hundreds of thousands of players.
I am hopeful Assetto Corsa EVO will instantly offer not only playability, but re-playability. To be honest, though, there are few sim racing or driving games that manage to not feel re-playable.
If you want to talk more about Assetto Corsa EVO, feel free to join our discord server and chat with us!