Welcome to Rear View Mirror, your weekly racing game news roundup. Get up to speed on all the latest racing game news from the past week. From Gran Turismo’s 25th anniversary to iRacing losing a major racing license, here’s everything you may have missed in the world of racing games this week.
Gran Turismo turns 25
25 years ago, one of the most influential racing game series of all time was born: Gran Turismo.
To celebrate the series’ 25th anniversary, Kazunoari shared a special message thanking fans and reflecting on the series, revealing that Gran Turismo has now surpassed over 90 million sales worldwide.
A nostalgic 25th-anniversary trailer released by Polyphony Digital also showcases how the series has evolved.
iRacing loses IndyCar license
For years, iRacing has hosted the virtual Indy 500. But with iRacing losing the IndyCar license on 31 December, the popular iRacing Indy 500 won’t be going ahead next year.
Instead, Motorsport Games now has exclusive rights to the IndyCar license. This has huge repercussions for the iRacing community.
WRC 23 could be coming sooner than expected
WRC Generations has only been out for just over a month, but the next official WRC game could be just around the corner.
A new rumour claims Codemasters’ WRC 23 game could be coming in the spring. This is surprising as the annual WRC games are usually released in the winter towards the end of the official WRC season. This means we could be playing WRC 23 several months before F1 23 next year.
In other racing game news…
Need for Speed Unbound perhaps hasn’t been as successful as EA hoped. After the latest NFS game failed to enter the top ten UK physical game charts, five veteran Criterion developers have left EA, leaving fans worried about the future of the series.
Not only did Gran Turismo celebrate its 25th anniversary this week, but the filming for the Gran Turismo movie has wrapped up ahead of its theatrical release in August 2023.
rFactor 2 players received a surprise last-minute Christmas present, with the Q4 2022 bonus drop bringing two new cars including the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup 992.
A new WRC Generations PC patch was also deployed, claiming to fix the ongoing throttle issues for PC players.
In case you missed it…
As Gran Turismo turns 25, we look back at the history of the series and why the first game was so groundbreaking back in 1997.
From all of us at RacingGames, we hope you have a merry gaming-filled Christmas!
It's going to be a happy new year for racing game fans too, with major releases like Forza Motorsport, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, and Wreckreation.