Motorsport Games has announced NASCAR 21: Ignition will be released on October 28, 2021. NASCAR 21: Ignition is headed to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam, and Motorsport Games has promised a free upgrade path for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S will follow post-launch.
The studio has released the first trailer for NASCAR 21 alongside the news, giving racing fans a first glimpse at the Unreal Engine-powered 2021 reboot of this stalwart sim series.
Folks who pre-order either the standard or “Champions” edition of NASCAR 21 digitally will get access to the game two days early. Champions Edition purchasers will also unlock 1988 Winston Cup champ and 16-time winner of NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver Award Bill Elliot as a playable racer. The Champions Edition will also include NASCAR 21’s season pass, which will provide access to a further three NASCAR legends down the track.
NASCAR 21 will come with the official drivers, teams, and tracks from the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series. This means it won’t be as broad as NASCAR Heat 5, but Motorsport Games has explained the decision to focus exclusively on the Cup series for the first instalment of this new series meant it could dedicate all its resources to ensuring the core NASCAR experience was “as close to perfect as we could be.”
“We definitely knew that people would be wondering, ‘Hey, you lost trucks, you lost Xfinity, you lost the fantasy dirt series,’” Motorsport Games’ George Holmquist tells IGN. “It’s really difficult to make all of those work correctly.”
“We also know from our player data that most people, probably 90% of our users or even higher, played just Cup, and the second-highest being Xfinity. So starting over we wanted to make sure the core of the game… was perfect, or as close to perfect as we could be. This doesn’t mean you’ll never see the trucks or Xfinity again; it’s just for this new game – the first rendition of it – we wanted to make sure that the core experience, the Cup experience, had a lot of attention to it and we weren’t dividing resources to create the feeder series.
“What we didn't want to have, if you’re a player of Heat, is that they all kind of feel the same; it’s just that they’re a different car model. Arguably the dirt series felt a little different because you’re on a dirt track, but it wasn’t like you were driving a truck versus an Xfinity car versus a Cup car. And they’re actually very, very different.”
Powered by Unreal Engine and rFactor 2’s widely-acclaimed driving physics, NASCAR 21 will feature a full career mode, 40-player online races, and a new paint booth the studio promises will offer “unparalleled levels of customisation to create NASCAR paint schemes.”
“Motorsport Games is thrilled to offer our most true-to-life simulation of NASCAR to date with NASCAR 21: Ignition,” said Motorsport Games CEO Dmitry Kozko. “We’ve designed this game with our fans and players in mind, bringing them features, modes and options they have long clamoured for. NASCAR 21: Ignition captures the atmosphere, pageantry, and fierce competition of the NASCAR Cup Series, while offering authenticity, competition and accessibility through the game’s core foundations.”
Confirmation that Motorsport Games would be releasing the first game in a new NASCAR series later this year arrived last month, shortly before the studio also confirmed it had partnered with IndyCar for a new racing series expected to launch in 2023 (the first standalone IndyCar game since 2004). Motorsport Games is also building a game based on the British Touring Car Championship.
Luke is Games Editor at IGN's Sydney office. You can find him on Twitter every few days @MrLukeReilly.