Assetto Corsa EVO Early Access is out now

thesixthaxis.com:

Assetto Corsa EVO, the latest entry in the popular sim-racing series, has debuted on Steam Early Access today, starting the long journey through to a full 1.0 launch, expected later this year.

Early Access is priced at €39.99 | $39.99 | £32.99 with an additional launch discount of 20% off for a limited time.

This is a more direct sequel to Assetto Corsa, as opposed to the motorsports focused Assetto Corsa Competizione. As such, there’s cars that include everything from modern road cars to classics, hypercars, and race cars.

For the start of early access, Assetto Corsa EVO has 5 tracks and 20 cars, alongside free practice, quick race, driving academy and special event modes. This will grow to include 100 cars and 15 licensed circuits for the 1.0 launch in Fall 2025, with 5 more tracks to follow after launch as free updates.

For now, though, the tracks include:

And cars include:

The first content update has already been laid out to add Circuit of Americas, five more cars, custom race weekends, and more. Five more updates are planned through the year.

Unfortunately, it seems that this is following the path laid out by Gran Turismo and other always-online racing games. There’s early reports that server issues are blocking players from accessing the in-game licensing events, and thus blocking them from unlocking more than an initial five cars. Great.

Hopefully they can address the server troubles, and I’m sure many will be hoping they reconsider this kind of digital locking system, because the rest of what AC EVO promises is incredibly promising. There’s a new proprietary race engine that is designed specifically for racing games. It features a full 24-hour race cycle, dynamic weather and track conditions, full support for VR and triple-screen set-ups and more.

Source: press release