Last week, former Slightly Mad Studios CEO Ian Bell surprised the sim racing community when he announced a successor to GTR 2 is in development.
Currently known as GTR Revival, the new GTR game is in development by Bell’s new company Mildly Annoyed Studios (MASS). Former SimBin developers who worked on the original GTR games are also attached to the project.
Since the initial announcement, new details on GTR Revival have emerged in a press release posted on GTPlanet by Bell.
GTR Revival targeting Q4 2024 release
Considering there were no screenshots or videos, GTR Revival is clearly at an early stage of development.
According to the release, GTR Revival is “tentatively scheduled” for a Q4 2024 release. We also now have confirmation that GTR Revival is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X and PC, marking the first time the GTR series has relesaed on consoles.
GTR Revival is described as “an unapologetic throwback to a time when sim racing was about realistic handling and physics, immersive, bone rattling action, and technological advancement.”
Underpinning the new hardcore racing simulation is a new bespoke physics engine created specifically for GTR Revival.
Powered by Unreal Engine 5
Powered by Unreal Engine 5, GTR Revival is set to deliver “unsurpassed graphics.” Mildly Annoyed Games goes on to claim that GTR Revival will “feel like a generational leap in the same way that GTR revolutionised the genre almost two decades ago.”
An official car list is yet to be revealed, but GTR Revival will feature an extensive roster of historic and current race cars. This will likely include a roster of official FIA GT cars – the original GTR was the official FIA GT Championship game.
Just as the first GTR started out as a mod for EA’s F1 2002, GTR Revival is also being developed with modding in mind. This means it will offer support for the community to create and add mods such as new cars and tracks.
To make the sim racer more accessible, the GTR Driving School from GTR 2 will return in GTR Revival. Mercifully, Mildly Annoyed Studios says the game won’t include microtransactions.
Bringing back the spirit of GTR
“GTR Revival isn’t about content and car lists and track counts and micro purchases at the back-end—it’s about bringing back the spirit of GTR. Our content will be all killer and no filler as we bring back the ethos of this genre—balls out, hardcore glory," said Ian Bell.
“We’re now free to make the kind of game we want to play, and funnily enough, that was exactly what inspired this team almost twenty years ago to make GTR.”
GTR Revival sounds admirably ambitious, but the sim racing landscape has changed significantly since GTR2 launched back in 2006.
When it launches in 2024, this will be the first new GTR game in nearly two decades. However, it will face stiff competition from established sim racers like Assetto Corsa Competizione, rFactor 2, and iRacing, as well as Assetto Corsa 2 so it will need to stand out.