There are some truly great racing games in some truly great franchises out there. Think Gran Turismo 4, Forza Motorsport 4, PGR4… other games not ending in 4.
Yet, for every generational hit, it seems pretty much every series has had an absolute stinker at some point – some worse remembered than others. In no particular order, we’ve picked out 10 times otherwise solid franchises have had a release to forget.
Dirt 5
The Dirt series got off to a great start with Colin McRae: Dirt in 2007 and only got better as instant classics in 2 and 3 released.
Things got a little strange after that, though. Dirt Rally was released as a more serious simulator than those before it, and left Dirt 4 in a rather strange position of balancing being a more casual take on the format but still chasing some realism.
That could’ve made the list, if not for Dirt 5. Codemasters had set a clear difference between the numbered games, now heading in a full-blown arcade racer direction, and Rally as one for the sim crowd. Releasing as an early title on ninth-generation consoles, it had a chance to cement itself as one to remember from the get-go.
It didn’t work out like that, though. Ultimately the game proved to be dull and repetitive with very little variation in the gameplay, and technically disappointing for a title with the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X at its disposal. It doesn’t look likely to get a sequel, and we’re not shocked.
Need for Speed: The Run
There are several entries into Need for Speed from the early ‘10s we could’ve thrown onto this honestly, but The Run sticks in the mind as the start of a real malaise for one of the most recognisable racing series out there.
Released in 2011, it was already up against it coming off the back of 2010’s brilliant Hot Pursuit and a change in direction did it no favours.
It wasn’t the first NFS to feature some sort of plotline, but it was significant in being a very story-driven title rather than having that as a backdrop to toy around in cars. As a result, it felt incredibly linear, the plot was just bad and you could finish the whole game in an afternoon. We’d also be quite happy to never see a quick-time event in a racing game again.
Forza Motorsport (2023)
Yeah, this was an obvious one. Five years on from Forza Motorsport 7, we were told the new-look Forza would be ‘built from the ground up’, making the most of the Series X to deliver a proper Motorsport experience.
Only, it wasn’t ‘built from the ground up’, nor was it much good. Visually the game is disappointing, looking nothing like its original reveal trailers, it’s littered with outdated car models and quite frankly is just boring to play.
To developer Turn 10’s credit, it has continued to improve the game but it’s still nowhere near where it should be. It could get there still, with its latest roadmap giving us some hope, but time will tell whether it’s ejected from this list or not.
Gran Turismo 6
‘What about Gran Turismo 5?’, I hear you say. See, GT5 was always going to fall short of expectations – it was coming off the back of arguably the greatest racing game of all time and several delays didn’t help its case. The result was a very good game living in a shadow.
It was a bit of a disappointment in itself, but we’d argue less so than the game that followed it. Gran Turismo 6 felt like a complete version of GT5… released in 2013. On the PlayStation 3. About a month after the PS4 came out.
GT6 could’ve been released as an expansion for GT5 and we’d have had no problem, but ultimately it turned out to be a largely underwhelming whole new game. It wouldn’t be until 2022 and the PS5 for a new numbered GT release, making the PS4 the only console never to have one.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown
As I’m writing this, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown hasn’t been out that long, and normally that’d be harsh. But the game is dead on arrival, to be quite honest.
Test Drive Unlimited is a series we perhaps look back more fondly on than it deserves, but nonetheless it has a strong place in many hearts with a 13-year gap between TDU2 and SC only adding to that.
But Solar Crown just doesn’t feel like much of a TDU game. The world is a little flat, the events are repetitive and there’s a complete lack of those ‘lifestyle’ bits the series is known for. We’re not even going to touch upon the absolutely disastrous always-online implementation…
Burnout Crash
Burnout Paradise was, in our view, the very best the franchise had to offer. Paradise City was a glorious playground of destruction, paired with fantastic gameplay and excellent (and still live) online multiplayer.
One thing it lacked, though, was a proper Crash mode as seen in previous entries. You know, the one where you launch into a junction with the sole intent of wreaking havoc. It did have Showtime in a similar vein, but it just didn’t feel the same.
No, for that, you needed a whole other game – the aptly Burnout Crash. And err, it was ok, but never quite felt like enough for a standalone mini-title and quite quickly got boring. That said, had the mobile version lived on, it’d probably work nicely today.
Project CARS 3
Project CARS took a long, long time to come out but when it did in 2015, it was delightfully refreshing. Here was a proper racing simulator built for consoles at a time when such a thing barely existed – Forza Motorsport was about as realistic as it got.
Its sequel only built on that with more cars, more tracks to race on and a more engaging career mode. Surely, then, the third time would be the real charm?
Err, no. For reasons known to literally nobody but developer Slightly Mad Studios, the series made a gigantic pivot towards being an arcade racer. Right.
It wasn’t a very good one at that. The physics felt weird, the ‘career’ mode was a hollow shell and the game’s progression felt more dragged out than watching the wrinkles on your forehead form as the passage of time slowly evaporated the vitality of youth from your body.
GRID (2019)
Race Driver GRID was one of Codemasters’ finest hours and looked set to spawn the once-TOCA franchise into one that would become one of the great pantheons of racing game history.
That never quite happened. GRID 2 came along with less of the engaging career mode and gritty motorsport focus that had made us fall in love with the high-octane original and while Autosport followed that by going closer to its roots, it was never able properly to shake a bug-filled mare of a launch.
Then, GRID came along in 2019 and with a vibe heading into its launch the series was going to get back on track. How disappointed we were.
It’s not that GRID was a bad game, it was just a completely forgettable one. According to my Xbox, I’ve played it for 54 hours but I honestly don’t remember a single one of those. GRID Legends was better, but not amazing although at that point there wasn’t a great deal of hope for the series anyway.
Mario Kart Tour
Putting a mobile-only entry on this feels harsh as quite frankly, no mobile game of any console or PC series has ever been truly good, but Mario Kart Tour needs a mention here.
Sure, Mario Kart is a racing game for people who don’t care about racing games but it’s just fun. There isn’t a single bad mainline entry, and the sound of Tour was a tantalising one. Here was Nintendo’s marquee racing series, the best kart racer of them all, on your phone.
But it wasn’t very good. The gameplay was limited to you inputting steering on the screen and little else, and it was based around circuits inspired by real-world locations than any of the iconic tracks from the storied franchise. Crucially, it lacked a proper way to play with your friends which has always been the best bit of Mario Kart.
F1 2014
When Codemasters had a proper crack at making an F1 game in 2010 (we’re excluding the Wii-exclusive F1 09), there was a real sense of something big brewing. F1 2010 wasn’t perfect but for a first serious attempt from the studio at turning the most famous motorsport in the world into a video game, it was a good one.
F1 2011 only improved on things with a more engaging career mode, and 2012 arguably set a peak for the series with immaculate gameplay and the wonderful introduction of a co-op championship mode. 2013 didn’t really build on that a great deal but redeemed itself by adding classic cars for the first time.
Then, as F1 entered a new hybrid era, things fell apart for Codemasters’ games. Stuck on the now-outdated Xbox 360 and PS3, it stripped back the classic content presumably as a focus was switched to handling the dramatic regulation changes and added nothing else. It was simply filler.
