It’s been a rocky few years for official NASCAR games. A few years ago, the licence was picked up by beleaguered developer Motorsport Games, and the two mainline titles released under its auspices – NASCAR Heat 5 and NASCAR 21: Ignition – haven’t exactly been met with glowing reception from fans.
Last year, though, it was announced that the official game licence for the stock car series had been acquired by iRacing, which has long included official NASCAR content in its wildly popular subscription-based mainline sim title.
Since then, iRacing subsidiary Monster Games, which developed a host of NASCAR games prior to Motorsport Games’ ultimately brief acquisition, has been working on a new official game, currently titled NASCAR ’25.
Now, an instalment of iRacing’s Dev Diary YouTube series has given us our first look at the game. There’s nothing quite as exciting as gameplay yet, but we’re treated to a brief bit of work-in-progress footage showing a current ‘Next-Gen’ NASCAR Cup Ford Mustang and some realistically animated crew members in a pit garage. It looks like the kind of scene that might be used for a pre-race menu.
NASCAR ’25 in-development car model
The game is set to combine Monster Games’ own proprietary physics engine with existing iRacing assets including laser-scanned cars and tracks and the Unreal Engine graphics model. Other racing titles to use Unreal include Assetto Corsa Competizione and in-development sim Rennsport.
So far, that’s all we officially know about the title. Assuming it’ll be a full simulation of the upcoming 2025 NASCAR Cup season, it should include all of the competing teams spread across the three cars used – the Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Toyota Camry – as well as the full lineup of tracks. These include a return to the legendary quarter-mile Bowman Gray Stadium for the season-opening Clash, and an inaugural visit to Mexico’s Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, the first time since 1958 a points-paying Cup Series race has been held outside of the USA.
NASCAR ’25 circuit laser scan
We also wouldn’t rule out content from the feeder Truck and Xfinity series, or some historic content, all of which iRacing has existing assets for. It’s also thought that the game is only set for a console release, with iRacing’s existing NASCAR tie-ins set to remain for PC gamers.
We should find out a whole lot more ahead of a likely release at some point next year, and it’s not the only spin-off title planned for 2025 by iRacing – there’s also an as-yet-untitled ‘arcade’ game in development.
