A title that strikes a balance between realism and entertainment
Through a video conference Slightlymad Studios, Codemasters and Bandai Namco gave us the opportunity to speak with two of the leaders behind the development of Project Cars 3, Joe Barron, marketing & esports manager and Pete Morrish, director of production. In this interview, we delved into various aspects, both technical and gameplay, to understand a little more what this simulator will offer next summer on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Meristation: Will this game have Ray Tracing, Deep Learning Super Sampling or Nvidia Freestyle on PC?
Joe Baron: I could not answer you at the moment, but if I can tell you that, just as we worked on the virtual reality aspect in Project Cars 2, in the same way we seek to improve the performance of the frames per second in this latest installment, as well as support in VR and 12k.
On the Freestyle support you can currently use elements of this function on PC 2, in fact, we recently used this section to create a scene that looked like a cartoon and we found it sensational, it even reminded me of the Take On Me video from a -Ha and it was a lot of fun, so we indisputably see it as possible.
Meristation: Will it have Fidelity FX support from AMD?
Joe Barron: We have no specific plans at the moment
Meristation: Do you have crossplay plans between platforms?
Pete Morrish: Nor do we have it planned to take care of the competitive aspect, since this cross between platforms can have delays of milliseconds, being a simulation game we prefer that players compete with each other with their respective services.
Meristation: What is the best feature in terms of graphics in Project Cars 3?
Pete Morrish: Racing games are characterized by being beautiful, they are always on the verge of the best in graphics, now we are in a moment where you have to push the visuals to the limit on platforms and here we try to squeeze them all out. In PC3 we have taken this to the point that it looks almost like in real life, especially running at 60 frames, although we want it to be more stylized than realistic. Our development focused more on realism and intensity because I can assure you that the game looks fantastic, we wanted to simulate the feeling of the races and how they look, for example, the effect of Motion Blur helped us a lot to create this feeling. The post-process effects on the other hand are focused on making us feel like we are really running a car. We prefer style more than realism in this version.
Joe Barron, marketing & esports manager and Pete Morrish, production manager of Project Cars 3
Meristation: Is it a simple game for beginners? Because the first one had a certain level of complexity
Pete Morrish: I agree with you, pretend games are like an entity that is usually seen as serious, hard and boring without any fun, this is where there is a fine line in the dilemma between racing fun and simulation . We in particular do not see it that way with PC3, we have tried to solve just this problem, giving support to both new and experienced players. The first we are helping them from the beginning with support for the things they need to start moving in this type of games, what we are looking for is precisely to make it appear that the simulation is fun.
Meristation: Iam Bell CEO of the studio, commented that the game will be “at least 200% better” than Project Cars 2. In which parts has this percentage improved?
Pete Morrish: Our improvements are in the multiplayer section with a focus on esports, user experience, training of new players, career mode, car updates and customization, all these layers of accessibility and democratization of the simulation to make the game more friendly, without neglecting the things that we in the development team love about racing.
Meristation: Project Cars 2 was characterized by adapting to multi-screen configurations and even monitors with different aspect ratios. Will Project Cars 3 keep doing it?
Joe Barron: Sure! In the development team we have several people who are extreme users of ultra-wide monitors including Pete, therefore I can assure you that it will be so.
Pete Morrish: They are some of the things that we determine when making a multiplatform game, we had to deal with resolutions and things like that, that’s why we decided to support these things so that everyone could enjoy it to taste.
Meristation: Will Project Cars 3 be available on PS5 and Xbox Series X?
Pete Morrish: We have no plans at the moment, since as part of this idea of democratizing our simulation game, we need it to reach the largest number of people, so we bet on the PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Project Cars 3 is one of the most ambitious titles of this generational closure that will arrive this summer on the platforms of Sony and Microsoft, as well as compatible computers, if you want to know more details about it, we suggest you read everything we prepared from the presentation global virtual made by Slightly Mad Studios.
Get ready to embark on #YourUltimateDriverJourney. Own, upgrade and customize elite-brand cars, personalize your racing hero and battle your way up from weekend warrior to racing legend in # ProjectCARS3. Summer 2020. PS4, Xbox One, PC.
Watch the trailer: https://t.co/Wj6IEZyGY9 pic.twitter.com/rU3tXHMQbT– Project CARS (@projectcarsgame) June 3, 2020
