RACING SPECIAL // DESIGN | BETA
drift, squeezing every ounce of grip from tyres, or nursing a damaged car home as there is in any explosive action game setpiece – perhaps more so as it’s a fully dynamic experience rather than being pre-baked by the hands of a designer,” says Codemasters’ senior executive producer Clive Moody. “The drivers interplay on the track, realistic ‘human’ AI behaviours, improved damage modelling and environmental effects that go beyond just the visuals and have a tangible effect on how the narrative of a race unfolds.” That said, Evolution Studios has already proved that well-designed setpieces can bring a fresh experience to racing games. Rustchynsky says: “With MotorStorm Apocalypse, we focused on the large-scale spectacle and really pushed the boundaries of environmental destruction. “We could have just tightened up the handling and added more intricate details as a sequel to Pacific Rift, but instead we changed the formula and shook up the series to provide a fresh take on the visceral driving action. And I see no reason why we won’t see more of this within the racing genre this generation.” The improved capabilities of the new consoles also opens fresh possibilities for racing developers, as does increasingly complex smartphone and tablet hardware. But Torsten Reil, CEO of CSR Racing owner
NaturalMotion, says this is just the start: “We believe there is a massive opportunity for great leaps in technology that will accelerate the realism around cars and we already strive to have them play a bigger role in the game rather than just a vehicle for manoeuvring around the track.”
Caletti predicts: “The next big thing in racing games will probably be a believable procedural destruction – that can be quite a technical and visual showcase. Not all games can or will be able to afford it, and I’m not talking about technical boundaries: you can easily imagine that not all licensors – car and bike manufacturers, championship licence holders – are so happy to heavily dig on that.”
There’s as much thrill in pulling
off an impossibly tight overtake than in any action setpiece pre-baked by a designer.
Clive Moody, Codemasters
As with many genres, developers have spent decades searching for new ways to get players interested in racing games. Some ideas fail and fade away, others can be revived years later. The important thing, says Burcombe, is to keep pushing forward. “I saw the trailer for Mario Kart 8 and thought ‘how we’ve come full circle’,” he says. “It’s been well reported that the first Mario Kart was a huge inspiration for Wipeout, so it’s great to see anti-grav Mario. No doubt they’d probably be keener to reference F-Zero than Wipeout, but it’s nice to see the anti-grav mechanic in there nonetheless. I think the trick is to keep trying new things.” Reil agrees: “It’s hard to innovate on racing games if you only focus on the car going
around the track. If we focus on creating compelling consumer experiences that go beyond a traditional approach to the racing category, we can deliver an experience that people will want to partake in throughout the day.”
DRIVING FORWARD
It’s also important to keep in mind why the racing genre felt like it was becoming stale just a few years ago. For some, a big contributing factor was the lack of new contenders and the death of old favourites – most notably Bizarre’s Project Gotham series. It can be tough to see new ideas such as Blur and Split/Second being rejected by the media and consumers alike, but it shouldn’t deter devs from at least attempting to reinvent the wheel. “You really need competition within the sector, which in turn means you need enough developers being in a position to try new things,” Nicholls concludes.
“If everyone tries to pile in on making variations on a driving simulator, you’ll end up in an arms race with everyone fighting over the same audience. However, if enough developers can try out different expressions of racing as a broad genre, there’ll be a much lower chance of stagnation.
“I believe that racing is a very primal thing. It’s part of human nature and it’s also very compatible with competitive play. Children will have running races with each other long before they’ve mastered kicking a ball. As long as you keep that at your core, there are a huge number of ways to try different angles, which would definitely stave off genre fatigue.”
Top-to-bottom: Evolution’s Paul Rustchynsky, Ubisoft Reflections’ Will Musson and NaturalMotion’s Torsten Reil ponder the progress the genre has made since the troubled action racer Split/Second: Velocity (main)
JUNE 2014 | 23
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