One of the very best things to emerge from a world without full metal racing, alongside the deluge of virtual racing with all its drama and hijinx, has been a series of fantastical tweets from MSV press officer Tom Arron as he fills his time before motorsport proper returns. Remember when Le Mans was dropped from the schedule and the Snetterton 24 Hours was revived with a full field of WEC cars? Or when an unfortunate typo in the regs saw a mob of angry Group C cars replace the group B field as they took to Brands Hatch’s rallycross circuit?
It’s pure nonsense yet these small videos are incredibly convincing, thanks in no small part to the all-encompassing nature of Slightly Mad Studios’ Project Cars 2 which Arron uses for his flights of fancy. It goes to show that, for all its faults, there’s perhaps been no more comprehensive a racing experience. This is the game that lets you do everything, whether that’s taking a Porsche 917 around a recreation of vintage Le Mans or splashing around a sodden Cadwell Park in a clubman Ginetta.
Still, I was slightly taken aback when first laying eyes on Project Cars 3 – indeed, I wasn’t even sure if this really could be Project Cars 3 as I watched a Mercedes AMG GTR being hustled around the streets of Shanghai and Havana. This was firmly in the realm of the arcade racer, territory Slightly Mad Studios’ new owner Codemasters had staked out as recently as last year with the Grid reboot which saw spectacular street races around those same two cities. Is this new direction a result of the recent union between the two companies?
