The new NASCAR 2021 video game is set to be released this week; Here’s a look at the issues
If you’re a racing driver, you use iRacing. For everyone else, the more generic racing games appear ok.
Not in this case. The early players of the NASCAR 21: Ignition Game are throwing the black flag.
The game is produced by Motorsport Games. It’s the first time their using a new tech, Unreal Engine 4. The company acquired rFactor earlier this year.
Motorsport Games also released the previous NASCAR Heat versions. This version will feature every track on the real-worl NASCAR schedule, including Circuit of the Americas and Nashville Superspeedway.
Fans had high hopes for the new game. The new tech engine was set to be a game changer for the gaming series.
Earlier this week, game reviewers were given there first laps of the new game. It’s been rough. The most annoying of all, steering help can be set on low, medium or high but it cannot be disabled. The car regularly steers itself.
Setups cannot be customized. The only change that can be made is a loose or tight settings bar. No, customized options are available for spring, shocks or anything else.
NASCAR 2021: Glitches
Then, there are far bigger bugs to address. For instance, many users have reported that while on track the car will suddenly jump from the race track, right into a pit stop.
One of those cases was seen on a live stream from David Schildhouse. Schildhouse also works as a videographer for Rick Ware Racing.
Schildhouse was leading on the final lap, he was then sent to the pits, abruptly. It didn’t stop there, it happened on a loop, for 9 and a half hours as Schildhouse went to bed. When he woke up, he saw that the game had put itself out of it’s misery by crashing.
AI cars don’t appear to make any attempts to avoid a parked car on the track. That can lead to massive pileups, at any track.
The lack of crash avoidance from the computer cars provides bigger issues on restarts. In some cases, the field is crashed before the green flag even comes out. And when the green does come out, the field is instead parked in a traffic jam.
Finally, the most amazing glitch even, in any racing game. We’ve seen video (shown below) of the pace car on the track during green flag conditions. The much slower pace car of course caused a crash which brought out a yellow.
NASCAR ’21: Ignition: Note to fans
On Wednesday, the game released a comment via their twitter account:
“We’ve seen a lot of excitement around the launch of NASCAR 21: Ignition and the feedback from out community.”
“WE ARE LISTENING. WE SHARE YOUR PASSION.”
“The continued support is invaluable to our team. We are actively working on updated and should have them live for you to enjoy soon. Thank you for your support.”
Motorsports Games provided the following statement to media:
“We are actively working on resolving the issues that have been reported by the community thus far. We hope to have our next patch live very soon, with additional fixes to follow.”
The game is set to be officially released on October 28th, 2021. It will be released on XBox, Stream and PS4.
