Project Cars 2: Release Date, Car List, Early Impressions and Top New Features

The original Project Cars dropped in 2015 to solid reviews and quickly developed a devoted fanbase. 

For the sequel, Slightly Mad Studios has done what any game developer looks to do with a follow-up—bring back the core, encourage new fans to join in on the fun and offer a finely tuned product building on the successes and polishing the faults. 

Sounds lofty, though the original secured a rating of 81 on Metacritic. The sequel, which drops on Friday, walks a tightrope between making a deep single-player experience and a multiplayer offering influenced by esports. All of this, based on early impressions, gets wrapped in a simulation-inspired package. 

One of the complaints about the original Project Cars from a vocal part of the fanbase was the selection of vehicles. Rest assured Slightly Mad Studios has ensured this won't be a topic of discussion again, not with 180 cars from 38 manufacturers included in the base game. 

Each of those on the car list can be found here at the game's official website. 

The strive for authenticity in the car selection is only matched by the same ambitions when it comes to the tracks. Project Cars 2 boasts 60 laser-scanned tracks spanning the globe, making any disciplines or series accessible right at a player's fingertips. 

Of course, the graphics need to be similarly impressive. Project Cars was ahead of its time in this area, and the sequel looks like it will push the same boundaries, this time notably also featuring dynamic time-of-day and weather systems that will impact the action on the tracks.

Just as important as the graphics is the gameplay itself. While assigning the game a 9.2 out of 10, IGN.com's Luke Reilly wrote about how the game controls great on a gamepad or steering wheel and is more accessible than the first iteration, should players want it to be. 

"Project Cars 2 is a tremendously deep destination for racing diehards but it doesn't want to outright intimidate people. There's even a built-in race engineer that will suggest tuning changes based on the feedback you give it," Reilly wrote. 

These options, after taking the iffy handling from the first game and rebuilding it from the ground up, are far from the only new feature. Career mode goes deep into the solo experience. 

There, players can move through various disciplines on the fly while working the way through a season. Customization, from picking a team to where skills develop is all there as players work through season by season while the top-tier manufacturers keep a close eye on their progress before recruiting them. 

Online play is all about accessibility, as expected. Players can hop on the server browser and find what they like or create their own session, tweaking the realism settings in various ways before opening up the hosted event to the public. 

Perhaps the most notable new feature is the online Competitive Racing License. This is an online filter of sorts, where the game judges a player's skill and behavior and assigns a license. 

The game's official website explained it well: "Broadly speaking, the license tracks three main spheres of a driver's career: a driver's reputation for safety, a driver's strength in terms of ability and racecraft—both of which can be used as a filter for online racing—and driver experience."

These licenses hope to make for a better online experience, and players in charge of a lobby can decide what level of license may join an event. There is a potential element of progression to an online career path now as well, with the goal of getting a better license as a player's skill improves.  

The esport slant mentioned above is also a big talking point of this year's game, with players even capable of watching a live broadcast from within the game itself. The Competitive Racing License plays a role here, as do lobbies with options to set up directors and broadcasters, who are non-competing players who will assist in getting the event out to the masses. 

In all, it sounds like an impressive package, and the early impressions seem to agree. Free from the restraints of an every-year development cycle, Slightly Mad Studios might have a racing heavyweight of its own capable of staying afloat in the deep end of a top-heavy genre.