Are all the tracks in the game based off of real ones?

MARK: Yeah, but we do create some from scratch. In some cases, we created tracks that no longer exists, so we base things on reality. But, yeah, in most cases we follow real circuits. In a small number of cases, we do some fictional ones, just to add some cool new environments and be a bit different.





DARREN: Because we’re making stuff from contemporary motorsports, we use laser scanned tracks and drones to fly over tracks and photogrammetry and things like that. As Mark said, sometimes we’re making tracks from the past, where there are no such references. You have to unearth things from the historical archives to try and get those made.

Project CARS 2, Image courtesy of Slightly Mad Studios

When it comes to building a fictional track, what kind of elements would you say are essential to making the track fun? What do you take into consideration when piecing one together? ANDY: Well, I think some of the tracks are from the best bits of other tracks. So, some tracks have the kind of scenery from an American track and the sweeping curves of a Japanese track, for example. They’re kind of mish-mashed together. Some of our road courses take the essence of reality and compress it into a fun fictional track.

How does the licensing work for the cars you include in the game? CASEY: We approach manufacturers to work out a deal and see where our wish list crosses over with what they’re happy with having in the game. It usually goes back and forth a few times and we s­ettle on a final list of what’s good for the game, what fits well with other cars, and what we can get from other car companies.





ANDY: Yeah, and then occasionally, the manufacturers ask us to put the car in the game. They might give us a set of info on a new car that’s going to be at the Detroit Motor Show or Frankfurt or Geneva, something like that. It used to be you’d go to a manufacturer and they charge you to get their car in your game, because they believe it adds value to your game. Now they’re seeing it more of an advertising stream because there will be more people that drive their car in game format than they ever do in real life.

Project CARS 2, Image courtesy of Slightly Mad Studios

Have you built any custom tools in-house to do specific tasks? MARK: In terms of the environments and vehicles, our team develops tools which are directly integrated as plug-ins in 3ds Max. For example, the environment, terrain and assets are all created and exported from 3ds Max and into our engine. Then, we export individual assets and dress the environments with anything from trees, crowds, characters, and dynamic things. The actual source artwork always goes through 3ds Max and then we use for the textures and it all gets combined together and exported and to our engine directly. We export all our data into a build which runs on all the different platforms so we can test on consoles and on PC.

What would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of being a part of the community that follows your game? ANDY: Games are usually made in the dark. You think of an idea and make it for a few years and then when it’s ready to be publicly shown, you show it at E3 or a big consumer event and hope and pray that what you’ve been working on for two years is actually what the community wants. You get a little bit of feedback but it’s usually too late to put that feedback back into the game.



The way that we’ve been making games with having the community involved from day one, mitigates a lot of that risk because they’re giving feedback every single day. They tell us how bad the game is at the beginning of the project and how it needs improving. They’re happy to be involved in the project to make it feel like they’re making a difference. We welcome that feedback because it ultimately means that we are delivering what the community wants. So, it makes our games better. They’re our biggest evangelizers. They’re taking screenshots and videos, nailing achievements - they’re our biggest asset, really.





MARK: There was a recent example of somebody who had health issues and they had a certain amount of physical disabilities. They tried the game and fell in love with it. It felt like it gave them the ability to do things that they wouldn’t be able to do in everyday life.



So, it was almost like a thank you email. There’s people out there that enjoyed the experience of playing the game so much that it’s kind of affected their lives in much bigger ways.

Project CARS 2, Image courtesy of Slightly Mad Studios