Project CARS

Project CARS (short for Community Assisted Racing Simulator) is a community funded racing simulator developed by Slightly Mad Studios, the developer of the Need for Speed: Shift series.

Xbox One

PlayStation 4

Linux

Overview

Project CARS is community funded racing simulator developed by Slightly Mad Studios for PC, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One. A Wii U version was planned but eventually canceled in favor of waiting for new hardware announcements from Nintendo. The game is set to release on May 12, 2015 in North America. Since it is still in early alpha, many content deals are yet to be done, so there are placeholder names for many tracks and cars. Some are fictional, such as the Shifter Kart 01 and Formula B.

Project CARS is the first game to use Slightly Mad Studio's (SMS) new crowd-sourced funding project named WMD portal (World of Mass Development). Interested customers can purchase one of six different levels of membership at this point in development, ranging from "junior member" for 10 €, all the way up to "Senior Manager" for 25000 €. The amount of access gamers have to the game's development depends on what membership they purchased, so junior members get monthly builds and can post in the forums, but can't create new threads. The next level up, Team Member, can play weekly builds of the game and start threads in the forums. The top level of membership allows members to attend development meetings, play every build of the game, and are granted a dedicated sub forum. Funding for the game has reached its target of 3,750,000 € and therefore has been closed.

The following features are planned to be in the final release of the game:

Features

Career Structure
Cloud-Based Social Network
Complete Day/Night Time Cycle
Co-op Career
Dedicated Servers and Matchmaking
Driving School
Dynamic Weather
Free Practice and Time Trial Modes
Full Race Weekend Format (practice, qualify, warmup, race)
Ghost Racing
Helmet Camera with head lean and look to apex
Living Tracks, which include track rubbering, drying of wet racing lines, and buildup of marbles
Pit2Car Radio Communication
Pit Stops
Portable/Mobile Apps
Reflective Windshield with Progressive Dirt
Safety Car
Telemetry Acquisition
Tire Deformation, including flat spots and punctures
TrackIR Support
Web Leaderboards
Wind and Ambient/Track Temperature, which will affect driving