As a direct ancestor of iRacing, the ‘Grand Prix Legends engine’ had multiple stock car racing false starts, before eventually releasing as NASCAR Racing 4. The original NASCAR 3, cancelled and replaced by one that used NASCAR 2’s engine, is barely remembered.
Video game development is full of names that have made groundbreaking steps you’ve never even heard about. Shawn Nash is a behind-the-scenes pioneer responsible for SODA Off Road Racing’s incredible physics, Papyrus’ graphical advancements and iRacing’s use of laser scan data for the physical track surfaces.
This interview with RSC, published in 2021, details his early life and career, through both his own company, Papyrus, Electronic Arts, to his time at iRacing.
Studio 397 have today released their fully licensed Monza for rFactor 2. It follows the free BMW car release this morning and is paid DLC coming in at $10.71 USD (Steam prices vary).
Official screenshots:
Official trailer:
A little commentary:
Licensed content. That’s what Studio 397 brought to rFactor 2 first when they took over. With ISI, pricing was set with modders in-mind and frankly the landscape had changed so much since rFactor (2005) that it just didn’t work the same way for the second title. Adding Assetto Corsa into the mix and really, the costs just didn’t add up. What content found it’s way into rF2 during the ISI-development period were part of special deals or directly offset via sales, but it was a very difficult thing to keep doing – so they didn’t. Studio 397 took over and changed the pricing to allow for a paid-DLC model which works. As someone who worked at both ISI and S397 I can’t tell you how delighted I am to have seen some of the content come to rF2 which has, items that never would have worked when you had to license, build, and hope for NEW sales of the whole product to come forward to offset what you already spent.
I spoke to someone at Monza years ago about licensing the track for ISI and we couldn’t afford it, with Ferrari laughably out of reach as well. The fact that you can pound laps in a Ferrari at Monza in rFactor 2 right now makes me so damn happy for everyone at that studio.
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