We attended the virtual presentation of Project Cars 3, the new installment of the Slightly Mad Studios saga. Fusion between two worlds of driving.
Another contender for driving joins this exciting 2020 for fans of the genre. Despite the purchase of Slightly Mad Studios by the British from Codemasters, the company continues to make progress on its way to achieving the ultimate meeting point for those who love four wheels. Project Cars 3 leaves behind the seriousness that characterized its predecessors. Trend that other rivals, such as Forza Motorsport 7, knew how to do at the time.
At FreeGameTips we attend its virtual presentation, in which two of its managers take us on a tour through its main characteristics. Do not be afraid: nothing has happened. The emphasis of the team is to make the two great aspects coexist, the arcade and the simulation. That both those who have a steering wheel and those who play with a traditional controller find the ideal Project Cars experience.
Renewed career mode
If you have been able to see the trailer that accompanies these lines, surely the first name that comes to mind is Driveclub. It is not for less. The offline driver’s license and test schedule has been removed for a renewed career mode from the ground up. We have sought to constantly reward the player with a multitude of elements that report experience and credits, essential to level up, access other championships and be able to expand and improve our garage.
The timeline will be divided into several stages linked to the performance of the vehicles on it. For example, Road E will take us through different events on board passenger cars without customization. Events that go beyond the traditional ones. To the championships, hot laps, races and duels that we find there will be added challenges, a series of integrated challenges in which to perform certain actions in order to receive bonuses.
Sometimes it is not necessary to reach the goal first. Simply the game guides you to adopt a comfortable posture, in which whatever you do allows you to continue climbing steps on the global path. Do not you feel comfortable with a time trial that makes you ball? Don’t worry: you can spend credits to unlock other events in advance. “We do not want people to feel tied to a specific type of championship”, tell us those responsible.
There will be no hint of micropayments. All the progress you make will be the result of your effort on the track. Whether to advance or improve your chassis, players will be in perfect balance no matter how much money they have in their pocket. Overall, the message they want to convey is to have created a more accessible environment without compromising the core experience. Therefore, the difficulty setting options have been expanded. From AI aggressiveness and efficiency to car performance; The less you help you activate, the more experience you will get.
Your car, your image
Project Cars 3 pays special attention to the traits that define cars and how your garage counts transversally across all game modes. We will find 10 fully unlockable classes that are divided by the Performance Index Rating, a value that regulates what class your vehicle is in according to its nature and the improvements it has integrated. The PIR allows you to know at all times how a tire improves or reduces its overall performance. Think about the values that the Forza Motorsport saga offers.
You can take a car from its beginnings and begin its transformation throughout the categories. A Toyota Prius can be converted into a Weapons GT. If you prefer to jump to a higher one, you can. As for the possibilities of expanding your vehicle, it is not an understatement. Radiator, engine, tires, suspension, weight … the aspects shown to us follow the smallest detail. Everything influences to add in this promotion to the queen category.
Personalization that is transferred in the same way to the visual plane. We will have the opportunity to create vinyls, compositions and others using the official and fictitious stickers offered by the editing tool. Your image represents you throughout the Project Cars 3 experience, included in multiplayer. You can compete with your creations and see others’ creations in real time without limitations.
The number of vehicles that make up the game catalog has not transpired, although according to the presentation, more attention has been paid to the plane of conventional passenger cars, perhaps relegated to a secondary place in the previous ones.
Multiplayer: the engine party
Online features are something that have defined the saga, especially in the second installment. His community has made the brand transcend alongside its rivals, but there was room for improvement. This reconstruction of the career mode has been extended to multiplayer, where the different experiences with which Project Cars 3 is composed have been better categorized.
Three points lead the window: Quick Play, Scheduled Event, and Custom. For the first time in the saga, skill-based matchmaking has been introduced. The fast games will be short tests in which the players will be divided by their skill and cleanliness on the court. It will be the scheduled events that will offer the competitive side. What does it mean? Well, they will be longer races on circuits and under the rules that Slightly Mad Studios has decided.
The window is reminiscent of Polyphony Digital’s commitment to Gran Turismo Sport. There will be a series of races scheduled in a daily format in which users must register to participate. During the time until the next session you can warm up and rank your best lap, which will determine your position on the grid. Once completed, the game will divide the groups according to the qualification and ability, in the same way that happens with the rest of the games.
Custom lobbies will have the same options as always. Choose the day and night cycle, the weather (if it will be variable or static), number of participants, and more. Although it has not been revealed to us by those responsible, the screens that accompany the information placed a maximum of 32 players. We do not know if that will be the participant limit, but there is the data.
It is not all about physically confronting others; You can also do it with their ghosts. The challenges of the community have given way to the Rivals mode, a challenge system that inevitably resembles the one built by Codemasters in their latest works outside of Formula 1. In them we will find challenges on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Under the rules imposed by the rotation, we will face the rest of the players through the global markers. When the time is up, we will receive one reward or another depending on the world rank in which we have finished. As we said at the beginning, every moment you stay behind the wheel has its fruits.
Sensations
The current health situation has prevented us from participating in a face-to-face event that Bandai Namco had scheduled. In it we would have tested on site the latest build of Project Cars 3. As it has not been possible, seeing the playable sections that have been made available to the specialized press allows us, at least, to share the feelings that it has left us.
There is constant emphasis on improvements made to traditional command control, one of the pending historical subjects. The basic scheme will be “more accessible and fun” than in previous installments, although it remains to be seen. As for the game in full competition, it is difficult not to feel that the arcade soul has taken over the simulation, especially in the urban tests shown. It remains to be seen how he feels behind the wheel, in addition to the two tracks that arrive: Interlagos and Shanghai.
During the tests, the objectives of the challenges are updated in real time, similar to the skills that appear in GRID. The graphics engine has been improved to make the post-processing do its job optimally, as well as the more natural use of motion blur. The force of the blows will be more severe than in the past. The sensation of colliding affects the image. All this means that the immersion manages to take another step forward.
Project Cars 3 will arrive sometime next summer on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
