Which Assetto Corsa should you buy?

Assetto Corsa is one of the most realistic racing games you can buy.

But did you know that along with the original Assetto Corsa, there's also Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition and the latest edition, Assetto Corsa Competizione.

So which one should you get?

Assetto Corsa

The original Assetto Corsa remains hugely popular with sim racing fans, despite having been released all the way back in 2014.

It’s still one of the most realistic racers around, and offers plenty of variety. There’s over 100 cars in the base game, and they're all recreated to an amazing level of detail - especially in regards to handling and performance.

Of course, you don’t just have to settle for that, either. Assetto Corsa has an active modding community that still provides players with fresh content. New cars, new tracks, new liveries, and more, are added regularly. In that sense, the game feels like it's ever-growing and expanding.

To top it all off, as the game is now seven years old, you should be able to pick it up fairly cheaply. We recently wrote a guide on how much you can expect to pay for Assetto Corsa on various platforms, which you can read here.

Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition

The Ultimate Edition of Assetto Corsa, which was released to consoles in 2018, comes with all the previously released DLC.

In some places, it's significantly more expensive than the base game. But if you know where to look (we're looking at you, 90% off Steam promotion) it's not much more. And, to be quite honest, it's probably the one worth getting.

There's been plenty of DLCs released for the game over the years; Dream Pack 1-2-3, Tripl3Pack, Porsche Pack 1-2-3, Red Pack, Ready To Race, Japanese Pack and Ferrari 70th Anniversary DLC. And with Ultimate Edition, you get them all!

Simply put, you get 170 cars to choose from, and 19 tracks with a total of 40 different configurations. Get racing!

Assetto Corsa Competizione

Released in 2019 and then for consoles in 2020, Assetto Corsa Competizione is the 'competition' edition of Assetto Corsa (just in case your Italian isn't quite up to standard).

It's not quite a sequel to Assetto Corsa. In actual fact, it serves as the officially licensed simulation of the 2018 and 2019 GT Series. You can find the Sprint and Endurance Cups here, as well as the the Total 24 Hours of Spa. It also serves as a platform for esports.

So is Competizione better than the original game?

Well... sort of. Content wise, Competizione focuses on the GT World Challenge Series, and has all of its tracks, cars and liveries. It also runs on a different engine; the Unreal 4 engine, while Assetto Corsa was built in-house at Kunos Simulazioni.

The biggest difference to most gamers is the fact that Assetto Corsa can be modded. Competizione, however, cannot.