The racing genre has come on leaps and bounds in recent generations of console. However, even today, there’s something that’s lacking from pretty much every major series out there.
The ability to create your own circuit is something that all racing gamers want. There have been efforts by some games to have a true track creator, but they’ve often failed to live up to potential.
With the PS5 and Xbox Series X now out, we believe it’s time to have a true track creator in a major racing game and here’s why!
A feature with endless potential
Racing against your friends is always fun. Whether it be at the go-kart track or in a game’s online lobby, it’s always a laugh.
How fun would it be though if you could compete against your friends around a circuit which you designed?
The possibilities would literally be endless. Want a mile-long straight? You can! What about a quadruple chicane? Why not?
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The player would be able to design something to suit them or hinder their friends. Tracks could be published online so that other players can rate them and attempt to set the fastest lap possible in time trial around them.
Which games already have a circuit designer?
The only major racing releases that had something close to a true track creator features were both Gran Turismo 5 and 6.
These games had good track creators, allowing you to change the length, complexity and setting of the circuit of your design.
Although, this option was removed for Gran Turismo Sport, but hopefully it will make a return for Gran Turismo 7 next year. The other circuit creator out there is one that’s been recently released!
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Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit was released in October on the Nintendo Switch and brings a spin on circuit creation. Home Circuit allows players to race around their living room using an RC car and checkpoint gates.
This is probably the closest we’ve come to a true track creator, although there are limitations to this.
If either Forza or GT can implement a true track creator into their games, it would be a huge 1up to whichever racing sim can include it.
Would give a greater understanding
How often have you seen the news that a brand new purpose-built circuit is set to join the calendar of your favourite racing series, only for you to insult the track when you see the layout?
“I wouldn’t have put that there.” and “What were they thinking!?” are two common responses.
Well, with a true creator available to all players, those excuses would be a thing of the past!
You could put your skills and imagination to the test and attempt to solve questions like “what if a circuit had this feature?”
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Having more circuits designed in a racing game would also solve some classic issues, in particular with sims.
There would be no limit to tracks available, so the negative of not having enough circuits available wouldn’t be around anymore.
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The other is that licencing can be an issue when trying to include real-life circuits into a game. This is why racing games often have their own custom-made tracks in their title to pad out the number of tracks.
With the racing community creating circuits for the developers, they could also focus on obtaining more cars and working on the physics model, for example.