- Primary Subject: Best "Podcast Games" for Driving (2026 Collection)
- Key Update: The 2026 driving simulator landscape highlights a shift toward "meditative" gaming, with titles like American Truck Simulator preparing to introduce car-specific packs for casual road-tripping.
- Status: Confirmed (Opinion Piece)
- Last Verified: February 23, 2026
- Quick Answer: The best driving games for podcasts in 2026 are Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator, BeamNG.drive, Assetto Corsa, Forza Horizon 5, and Art of Rally.
Sometimes you don't want to sweat over apex lines or fight for position in a pack of 30 cars. Sometimes you just want to drive. Put on a podcast, settle into your rig (or your couch), and let the road do the talking while your brain processes whatever episode you're binging.
I've spent an embarrassing number of hours doing exactly this, and these are the games I keep coming back to when I want to zone out behind a virtual wheel.
Every game on this list has a different vibe and a different strength. Some are pure simulators, some lean more toward arcade, and one of them involves a lot of mud. The common thread? None of them demands your full attention, and all of them feel fantastic when you're just...driving.
Euro Truck Simulator 2 / American Truck Simulator: The Original Podcast Games
If any games own the "podcast game" label, it's these two. SCS Software somehow made long-haul trucking one of the most calming experiences in gaming, and they did it twice.
Euro Truck Simulator 2 sends you across a scaled-down Europe, while American Truck Simulator puts you on wide-open interstates through the deserts of Nevada, the forests of Oregon, and the sprawl of California. The core loop is the same: pick up cargo, follow the GPS, obey the speed limits (or don't), and deliver. That's it, and it's perfect.
Both games let you build a trucking company from scratch, hire drivers, buy garages in different cities, and slowly expand your empire while you're vibing on the motorway. ETS2 has built-in internet radio with real European stations, including TruckersFM, a community-run station made specifically for the game.
ATS has equally strong mod support, with real radio stations and graphical overhauls that keep things looking fresh years after launch. Sound overhaul mods for both games add wind noise through open windows, better engine rumble, and ambient environmental sounds that make long hauls feel genuinely immersive.
ATS is also getting car packs soon, which means you'll eventually be able to ditch the big rig and just road trip across the western United States in a pickup truck. If you haven't tried either of these as background driving therapy, you're missing out.
BeamNG.drive: A Sandbox With No Rules
BeamNG.drive is weird in the best possible way. On the surface, it's famous for its soft-body physics engine that lets you crumple cars in hilariously realistic ways. Underneath that, though, there's an incredibly satisfying free-roam driving experience.
The cars handle like actual cars. Automatic transmissions behave the way real automatic transmissions do, with torque converters and all. You feel weight transfer, tire flex, and suspension travel in a way that most dedicated racing sims don't even bother with.
For podcast driving, I like to load up one of the bigger maps, spawn a regular sedan or an old pickup truck, turn on traffic, and just drive around, obeying traffic laws. There's something deeply satisfying about puttering through a small town in a beat-up hatchback with the AI traffic flowing around you.
The career mode, while still a work in progress, gives you a city to explore with missions and tasks if you want a bit more structure. BeamNG gives you complete freedom to make your own fun, and sometimes that fun is driving 35 mph through a neighborhood while someone tells you about the history of breakfast cereals in your earbuds.
Assetto Corsa (Modded): The Enthusiast's Cruise
Assetto Corsa is a hardcore sim racer at its core, but the modding community has turned it into something else entirely. Install a few free roam maps and a traffic mod, and you've got one of the most authentic open-world driving experiences available on PC.
The physics are outstanding, and when you pair that with a map like LA Canyons, Shutoko Revival Project, or the Pacific Coast highway recreation, it becomes genuinely hard to stop driving.
The Shutoko Revival Project alone has over 150 kilometers of Tokyo's highway system modeled, complete with traffic, realistic lighting at night, and enough on-ramps and exits to keep things interesting for hours.
Other popular maps include a recreation of Scotland's glens, a Caribbean island, and a stunningly detailed stretch of rural northern England called High Force. With the right mods, this game goes from an intense track day simulator to the most atmospheric cruise you'll ever take.
Forza Horizon 5: The Casual King
If you don't want to mess with mods and just want to jump in and drive, Forza Horizon 5 is probably your best bet. The open world is set in Mexico and spans jungles, deserts, beaches, mountain roads, and small towns. The handling sits in a sweet spot where it's forgiving enough to be relaxing on a controller but still feels connected to the road.
A surprising number of Forza Horizon players never actually race. They just cruise. Others have racked up thousands of hours in free roam alone, building weird car tunes and exploring every dirt path on the map.
You can turn off the online players if you want, go into Horizon Solo mode, and have the entire map to yourself with just AI traffic rolling around. The world is colorful, the car list is massive, and there's zero pressure to do anything you don't want to do. It's the perfect "I have 30 minutes and want to drive a vintage Porsche down a coastal highway" game.
Art of Rally: Meditative and Gorgeous
Art of Rally looks like nothing else on this list. It uses a high-angle camera, low-poly visuals, and a vibrant cel-shaded art style that turns every track into a piece of moving art. The game is technically a rally racer with a career mode and time trials, but it has a philosophy about itself that keeps things mellow even when you're pushing hard.
The developers value flow state over winning. No matter how you finish in career mode, you still progress. The free roam maps are where the podcast energy lives. There are six of them spread across different countries, each with collectibles to hunt, photo spots to discover, and plenty of winding roads to explore at your own pace.
The handling takes a while to click, and there's real depth to the physics with grip levels, weight transfer, and surface changes all playing a role. Once it does click, drifting through a Finnish forest or a Kenyan dirt track while half-listening to a true crime podcast is a genuinely great way to spend an evening.
Driving games don't always have to be about competition. Some of the best ones give you a space to breathe, a wheel to hold, and a road that goes somewhere worth seeing. Throw on your favorite podcast and let these games do the rest.
Stay tuned to racinggames.gg: the best website for racing game coverage.