Automobilista 2 Now With Le Mans; Exquisite Racing Game With 91% Rating on Steam
Automobilista 2 takes another big step toward becoming the ultimate racing game. Two new DLCs add endurance racing under the Le Mans banner at the Circuit de la Sarthe, featuring machines such as the Porsche 963 and the BMW M Hybrid V8, to the wide range of already available motorsport disciplines.
Automobilista 2 offers one of the largest collections of race tracks among car simulators, but until now it has lacked one of the most important venues - France's Circuit de la Sarthe, the arena of the 24 Hours race of Le Mans. That will change in the coming days: before the end of the week a new DLC is expected to go on sale.
The expansion will, for now, offer two contemporary variants of Circuit de la Sarthe - the main 13.6-kilometer loop with chicanes on the Mulsanne straight, and the smaller Bugatti Circuit. In time, these will be joined by various historic versions. All of this is expected to cost $8.99.
In addition to this, at the same time, the second new DLC will be released - the Endurance Pack Pt1 - containing seven cars associated with the struggles on this track: four GT3-class machines and three LMDh (Hypercar) cars. Here's the list:
- BMW M Hybrid V8
- BMW M4 GT3
- Cadillac V-Series.R
- McLaren 720S GT3 Evo
- Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo
- Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)
- Porsche 963
This DLC is also expected to cost $8.99. The first and last of the above vehicles have so far been offered exclusively by iRacing, so this is quite a treat for lovers of top-level endurance racing.
In addition, devs at Reiza have already announced the 2024 Endurance Pack Pt2, which will feature more machines from the aforementioned categories, as well as from the GTE, LMP2 and LMP3 classes. The developers haven't revealed which specific models are in the pipeline, but have indicated that we should expect a "more Latin flair" (or rather, South American flair - Reiza is a Brazilian developer) from them. In addition we can also expect more historical vehicles, added over time.
Source: Reiza Studios.
The additions will be accompanied by update 1.5.5, in which:
- the devs will introduce more single player championships with ready-made rule sets, including multi-class "regional and international" endurance competitions;
- there will be a refined, "official" option to give control of the car to teammates controlled by AI during long-distance races; over time, the developers will add settings to more precisely determine who takes over the car from the player, and for how long;
- effects will be beautified for sparks and raindrops on windshields (links lead to videos demonstrating the improvements), the backlighting of LED and LCD screens in cockpits will also be improved; for the future, the developers announce more visual changes in graphics, but stress that they do not want to introduce them at the expense of game optimization;
- there will be an option to set the maximum number of vehicles visible on the screen - mainly to enable players to improve performance during night races (when computing power is drained by numerous light sources);
- immersive details: the artificial intelligence will learn to flash lights, signalling slower cars to make way, and LED screens on the roadsides will display flag colors (video);
- there will also be no shortage of minor fixes; we will learn the full list of changes when the update becomes available.
The post, in which the above news was revealed, also included plans for further development of the game. Finally, I would like to remind you that as part of the Winter Sale on Steam Automobilista 2 costs only $10 (until January 4). This is an excellent price for an item that, from update to update, is given more and more love by racing enthusiasts and already has a rating of 91.4% on Valve's platform.
