Project CARS arrived in May 2015 with a loud claim attached: the most authentic, beautiful, intense and technically advanced racing game on the planet. That is the publisher’s line, not ours. What Slightly Mad Studios actually shipped is a motorsport simulator that earns most of that boast and stumbles on a few of its own ambitions.
Trailer, via IGDBcom.
Slightly Mad Studios Builds a Driver, Not a Hero
Project CARS skips the usual career scaffolding. There is no rags-to-riches story, no rival with a grudge, no cutscene where a mentor hands over the keys. You create a driver, pick from a variety of motorsports, and go racing.
That choice defines the whole game. The structure is a ladder of Historic Goals, with the Hall Of Fame waiting at the top for anyone who clears them. Progress is measured in results, not narrative beats.
The modes split cleanly:
- Single player, built around the Historic Goals chase
- Multiplayer, running competitive fully-loaded race weekends
- Leaderboard-based time challenges
- Continually updated community events
It is a lot of racing, and it is organized well. The online side in particular gives the game a reason to stay installed long after the Historic Goals run dry.
A Dynamic Time of Day System That Changes the Race
The headline technical feature is a ground-breaking dynamic time of day and weather system. This is not a cosmetic toggle. Conditions shift while you are on track, and the game’s handling model responds.
That combination — world-class graphics and handling, married to weather that will not hold still — is where Project CARS separates itself from the field. A race that starts dry does not stay dry because you want it to.
Deep tuning and pit stop functionality back this up. You can adjust the car and you can work the stops, and both matter over a long run. The perspective options cover first person, third person and virtual reality, which is a broader spread than most racers of its era offered.
The platforms are broad too: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Linux and the Oculus Rift. The Linux and Oculus Rift support in particular marks this as a project built by people who cared about the edges of the market, not just the two big consoles.
Where Project CARS Loses the Racing Line
The game’s own summary claims it leaves the competition behind in the dust. That is the part worth pushing back on.
Project CARS is a simulator first, and it behaves like one. The handling is demanding, the tuning is deep, and the weather system punishes anyone who treats a race as a sprint. Players who want a forgiving arcade racer will find the learning curve steep and the assists limited.
The Historic Goals structure is also thinner than a traditional career mode. It gives you targets, not a story. Whether that reads as focus or as emptiness depends entirely on what you want from a racing game.
The strongest argument for Project CARS is that its systems hold up under pressure. The weakest is that it never quite decides whether it wants to teach you or test you.
The Verdict on Project CARS
Ranked against what a 2015 racing simulator needed to do, Project CARS delivers on the things that are hardest to fake.
- The dynamic time of day and weather system, which changes how every race is driven
- The handling and tuning depth, which rewards time spent learning the car
- The online suite, from race weekends to time challenges to community events
The graphics and handling are genuinely world-class. The tuning and pit stop work is genuinely deep. The Historic Goals and Hall Of Fame give the single-player side a spine, even if that spine is thinner than a full career mode would be.
Where Project CARS falls short is accessibility. It is a simulator that expects commitment, and it does not apologize for that. The result is a game that will lose some players in the first hour and hold others for years.
That trade-off is the right one for this genre. Project CARS is not trying to be everything to everyone. It is trying to be the most technically advanced racing game on the planet, and in 2015 it made a strong case.
The published critical score sits at 8.2/10 across 14 outlets, and that feels about right. Project CARS is an excellent simulator with a narrow door. If you are willing to walk through it, the racing underneath is worth the effort.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
