Le Mans Ultimate has already been out for 7 months. It is still in early access, quite a lot of different features are still missing. It is not the best simulator in any regard. However, it is by far not the worst either. In fact, it is perfectly adequate.
The Bumpy Road So Far
Let’s be real here. Le Mans Ultimate has not had the best of launches when it was published into early access in February of 2024. Many people had issues launching the game. Others struggled keeping the game from crashing. However, that is early access for you. Studio 397, Le Mans Ultimate’s developer, fixed most of the more grievous errors quite early on and the sim quickly became an okay simulator.
Online racing has been steady and Studio 397’s ranked system has been working just fine. In fact, Race Control, as the developers dubbed the system, is arguably the best ranking system in the sim racing ecosphere. Especially refreshing is the post-race analysis which describes why ones ranking changed in the way it did. Beginner races, additionally, have not struggled attracting players yet.
I have just came back to Le Mans Ultimate this week, but having raced all three currently available classes, I see the bumpy road has been resurfaced.
The Current State of Simulated Endurance Racing
Le Mans Ultimate is not the prettiest sim racing game currently out.
The likes of Assetto Corsa Competizione definitely has a leg up on this comparatively new competition. Yet, compared to iRacing or even RaceRoom with the new graphics update, the official WEC simulator looks perfectly adequate. Some issues even made themselves clear during my recent races. While the cars look gorgeous, trackside scenery and effects leave quite a bit of fidelity to be desired. Especially the shadows cast by trees onto the circuit sometimes feel disorienting. Turning up the shadow graphics settings to “ultra” only slightly alleviated the issue, results in worse performance, though.
Le Mans Ultimate is not the best controlling sim racing game currently out.
The force feedback feels okay on the Fanatec CSL DD 8Nm. Certainly, iRacing, Assetto Corsa Competizione and even rFactor 2 feel to have a leg up. I struggle with feeling what the cars want from me as a driver. Keeping a safe pace is not an issue. Racing does not work like that, however. It’s in a racing driver’s nature to push it to the limit. So, when you lose your car but do not know how to save it in the moment, you are going to struggle. Personally, I have been able to save lock ups or snaps mostly on a visual basis. The force feedback seems to only give subtle hints as to the possibility of something going awry.
Le Mans Ultimate is not the most feature-rich sim racing game currently out.
A lot of features have been promised for the full release but haven’t made it into the early access release. Most notably, an endurance race without driver swaps kind of defeats the purpose. Consequently, this WEC simulator doesn’t feel like a sim focussing on long races, though. The main racing series known for long races is currently only represented by sprint racing. While this might seem a disheartening prospect, we cannot forget that network infrastructure is one of the most crucial and complicated parts of software. Sim racing games are no exception and I’d rather have this current version with sprint races than a half-done driver swap mode full of errors and problems. Assetto Corsa Competizione has already been underwhelming enough in this department.
Underwhelmingly, especially for our racing community (You can join the tracc.eu Racing Community by clicking here!) hosted sessions are not available at the moment. That means, if you want to race online, you have no other option than to do ranked racing.
What does Le Mans Ultimate’s Future Hold?
Apart from the lack of certain promised features, not being up-to-date with WEC content continues Le Mans Ultimate’s current woes. Interlagos, Circuit of the Americas and Losail are currently still missing from the 2024 calendar. Luckily, during the recent WEC event at the Texan world-class circuit, Studio 397 demonstrated an early access version of CotA. It is therefore safe to assume that one of the upcoming content drops from the 2024 season pass will feature the circuit.
Additionally, Studio 397 confirmed that GT3s are on their way to Le Mans Ultimate. 2024 did mark the first year where the previous GTE category has been replaced by a global fan-favourite across different racing promoters: the GT3s. Having established itself as the new norm of GT racing, ACO even adopted SRO’s GT3 class. These cars should make it easier for newer drivers to get into the groove of Le Mans Ultimate due to having ABS.
Lastly, we cannot forget that Le Mans Ultimate is still in development. Many, if not all, of the mentioned aspects will change over time. Graphics can be optimised. Physics and force-feedback can be tweaked. Features can be added. And most importantly, I will be there for the ride.
If you are interested in trying Le Mans Ultimate out, you can buy it on Steam here.
Le Mans Ultimate is compatible with Coach Dave Delta, a tool that allows drivers to compare their telemetry to pros and provides professionally created sim racing setups in one subscription. Click here to access Coach Dave Delta (affiliate link).