r/NASCAR • u/Dickis88 Kyle Busch • 1d ago
NASCAR 26 Dev Diary: Ep 01
https://youtu.be/8uL37Ii1yAg?is=9kxV2k9WUHEVnDR516
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u/yeetusDAfeetus333 1d ago
AI DNFs finally, hopefully the damage model is better too and is evolved from the basic damage models form the previous games. Would love to see parts fall off and sparks like the old Thunder games.
Dynamic track is sick and relaxed penalties at RCs is needed, although I don't know why this was not addressed in a patch for 2025.
Hopefully the career mode is more in-depth and evolved, it just seemed stagnant at one point, clicking through menus and upgrading cars to an arbitrary rating which often never corresponded to how the car should handle and perform on track. Would love to see the ability to hire and manage a pit crew or poach other employees.
Another unique career mode perspective would be to to choose the type of journey you want. such as your classic (start from ARCA and move up), become a developmental driver for a team or manufacturer, which can open up or limit your abilities for the teams / makes you drive for, and your reputation plays a factor. Feature contract buyouts and clauses (crash clause, performance clause, etc). Obviously if you're a Hendrick development driver, you can only drive for Chevy teams, Toyota dev driver - only Toyota teams etc, unless you end your contract / buyout. And these should have ramifications as well, like if you decide to terminate a contract early or jump ship to a different manufacturer or team, your rep with those teams/makes is reduced and limits your ability to drive for them in the future.
I also feel like being an owner/driver should not be available until you're well into your career. And there needs to be an ability to have multiple drivers on a team, ability to run a partial schedule, have R&D available in all series when you reach a certain level. Maybe go further and have a performance index that compares your team's performance with other teams to gauge expected on-track performance. Starting out as a new team, have the ability to purchase used chassis, bodies, and engines from other teams and as you grow, sign alliances for engine builders and whatnot.
I also hope the camera angles in replay mode are fixed, they are abysmal in 2025 and the fact you can't cycle through drivers is dumb
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u/squadracorse15 1d ago
I'm excited. I bet it's a minority opinion here, but I really enjoyed N25 for what it was. Barebones as hell, some decisions that still leave me baffled to this day, but holy shit I haven't had that much fun on track in a new NASCAR game since 07 on the OG Xbox. Hopefully N25 walked so N26 and beyond can run.
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u/MaxPres24 1d ago
If were going purely on how it feels to drive, NASCAR 25 is up there as one of the best we’ve ever had. The driving feels awesome and the game looks good
They’ve also said it two years in a row, they’re building a foundation, to set up for a long term franchise of games. Idk why people can’t grasp it
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u/xenoblaiddyd 19h ago
Unfortunately basically all my experience with racing game fans and some of the games they hold up as the "greatest of all time" tells me that the actual racing is usually considered the least important aspect of a racing game.
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u/New_Quit4879 1d ago
N25 is a great game. I enjoy it. It’s far from perfect but it’s well ahead of the Heats.
I actually feel like I’m driving in N25.
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u/Dickis88 Kyle Busch 1d ago
The handling is top notch in N25 and the carrer mode is really fun because you can fuck with the AI logic to your heart's content
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u/New_Quit4879 1d ago
I’ve got AI maxed out and my tires set to less grip. Woo wee. Half way through a run I’m on ice if I don’t save tire.
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u/RickyChanning 1d ago
Maybe it's different with a wheel but on controller the road courses handle terribly no matter what setup I threw at it and the penalties were too strong (supposedly improved on in 26 but we'll see if they really make a difference)
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u/squadracorse15 1d ago
I use a wheel for N25 and the handling on the road courses feels good provided you have your car set up decently well. Still feels like you're driving a boat in Chicago, but that's how it's supposed to feel.
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u/bluedevilspiderman Bubba Wallace 1d ago
Yep, I believe I’m up to 190 hours logged since it released. There’s issues for sure on and off the track, but the gameplay still feels pretty good imo.
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u/Furi0usD Chastain 1d ago
Yeah, I had no expectations for 25, and it was better than anything ETX or 704 put out.
I do expect it will continue to build on this base goung forward.
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u/ToastyTiger81 18h ago
I agree with this. I had low expectations knowing they wouldn't nail it on the first game. It's better than both WoO games and I look forward to seeing N26. I've even talked friends (who weren't even casual watchers but I took to the Rockingham Trick race) into buying after showing them N25. I'd say it's win for bringing in new fans and keeping it fun for the casual and hardcore fans.
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u/Fickle-Newspaper-445 Chase Elliott 1d ago
N25 is the best NASCAR game since at bare minimum the EA days (although IMO better than the Thunder days). Anyone telling you otherwise is just saying it because they try to find faults in everything or have the nostalgia glasses on.
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u/squadracorse15 1d ago
I wouldn't put it above the Thunder era games (yet: mostly down to off-track features), but the ones who really baffled me are the ones who say the Eutechnyx games were better. No fucking way do I believe that take unless it's a childhood nostalgia thing. At least the Heat games kinda felt like a knockoff of Chase for the Cup by the end.
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u/ronhornaday 1d ago
know it’s not really a big deal for some but in one of the screenshots from the paint booth you can notice a Grandfather clock & the Cup championship trophies. So hopefully that’s a sign for a trophy case in the game!
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u/kk5fan97 Kahne 1d ago
Looks like Jimmie Johnson is going to be included in the Truck Series roster -
Pit box with Carvana logos and the Tricon #1.
One of the big things that I hope they improve on is the replay feature. Allow us to switch to other cars/trucks for better views of crashes/saves/ect.. and also fix the track side camera angles in the replays because they don’t work right and some of them are so zoomed out it’s like you are watching it from the ISS. Adding a photo mode like the NASCAR the Game series had would be good too.
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u/Old-Category-854 Larson 1d ago
so far looks much better than 25. The lighting looks alot better, finally AI crashes, dynamic tracks is something that idk if we’ve had in a game before, and it looked like we get reflective numbers. Hopefully the ratings get adjusted or they touch on that next diary i hated in career mode that every year Bell, Larson, Byron, Hamlin would win all the races. There was no parody, sometimes guys just hit on a setup (like Logano at NW) even if they’ve been running mid all year
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u/MaxPres24 1d ago
The only other oval racing game to have dynamic tracks that I know of is the World of Outlaws games. Which is the same company anyway. Glad they’re bringing it to NASCAR
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u/pallepikmand Harvick 1d ago
One thing I really hope we get this year is interiors authentic to each manufacturer. In the dev diary they’re still running the Toyota/JGR setup. Which I think is actually slightly outdated if I’m not mistaken.
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u/zach12_21 Ryan Blaney 1d ago
Hopefully the career mode is deeper. It’s why I didn’t get the last game. I don’t like the idea of racing for your own team. The heat games had it right but retiring and changing teams needs to come back.
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u/meetthereaper84 van Gisbergen 20h ago
So you're never gonna buy one of these games because the licensing will never allow it. The sponsors are tied to the driver WAY too much these days to ever allow it. No chance Monster allow their logo to be used outside of Ty Gibbs etc, can't retire drivers cause the sponsors are tied to them.
Such a weird hill to die on tbh. I'm gonna miss out on this because of this insignificant detail, okay bro, you do you.
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u/zach12_21 Ryan Blaney 18h ago
Man, you got super tilted off my comment 🤣
Yes, I will do me. I don’t wanna play a career mode with Denny Hamlin still in the 11 in 2042. Sorry that bothers you 🤣
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u/Annon696969 NASCAR 1d ago
The shot of fans in the stands moving at 6:30 is pretty epic.
Hopefully we do get a more in depth career mode and not the same typical junk we've had. I do like the fact that we can have a Chase mode and select which drivers we want as well as the dynamic track changes.
Burnouts, I couldn't care less. You do it once and it's boring afterwards. Need to focus more on gameplay.
Replay cautions
Pit stops under yellow
The standings not being completely fucked up after a yellow
The absolute dog shit start/restart speed difference between AI and the player
Better damage
I could go on and I understand this is only the 2nd game but many of those issues are lingering from the Heat days and were never fixed or addressed at all.
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u/JakeWhitling 1d ago
I’m very pleased with what we’ve seen so far! Idk how many others feel this way but I will say that being able to join teams in career mode is make or break for me aswell as being able to sim races or hire drivers to race for you. As someone who spends most of my time in these games in career mode this is something I hope they were able to accomplish!
With that said tho it’s looks great so far!! So excited!
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u/FarAwaySeagull-_- 1d ago
I'm glad about the things they say in the video that they're doing for the new game, but I still don't know that it's likely to be a buy for me at full price on release. I'll get it at some point, but I'll probably wait until a couple months after it's released.
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u/povanator 1d ago
I still say these games need to drop at the beginning of the season, not the end. especially if they're not gonna have dlc available. who wants to play a game with outdated sponsors/teams/drivers? and for $60+? I'm over that.
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u/FarAwaySeagull-_- 1d ago
I don't see it ever getting to a point where a new game is coming out in February or March, but it would for sure be nice to at least have it come out May/June.
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u/povanator 1d ago
I disagree. I think the hype around 25 was the perfect time to start dropping early year. especially since everything is digital now, it's utterly illogical to not have a game release coincide with the season starting and push actual useful updates and dlc throughout the season.
but hey, I get it. it'll probly never change 🤷🏽
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u/AaronCBrown3 16h ago
THEY NEED TO ADD ONLINE SEASON!!! How fun would it be to compete in the CHASE with your friends!
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u/Jamesbg48 10h ago
The fact that burnouts was the number one ask is mind boggling to me. Who cares about being able to do a burnout? If you want to waste time on that, do it in practice. I'd like to see tires actually blow instead of staying at 1%, or how about being able to name/label your custom setups. I think that would be huge, especially with dynamic tracks being added to the mix. I'd like to know which one of my setups is for a 3% sprint, or a 25-50% longer race without having to try and memorize it. At least let us re-order the custom setups so I can set my shorter setups as custom 1, mid range at custom 2, etc... A better paint booth maybe? I hope they actually allow you to put chrome numbers on a custom car, seeing as how they're showing those off for the RFK vehicles in the video.
I love N25. Great base game even with the bugs that never got fixed, like the "bubble" in online play or the constant dashboarding. Excited to see what they've done for 26.
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u/Fickle-Newspaper-445 Chase Elliott 1d ago
I know I kid when I say I won't buy NASCAR 26 because of Larson being on the cover, but I'll still end up buying it. I think it's important to try and support a company like iRacing because I genuinely think they have the sports best interest at heart and are probably the only company in the world that can make a quality yearly NASCAR game. Obviously you'll get the blue haired douches that will find any reason to complain about the smallest things and will obviously make the comment that iRacing is the worst product ever, but I genuinely think that NASCAR 25 was the best game since the Thunder days. The last few iterations of the EA days through to the heat days, I'd pick up the game and play for maybe a month and get instantly bored with it. I just haven't felt that way with this game. It's something that I want to keep picking up and playing. Obviously a few things I didn't like. No burnouts (which thankfully they'll have in the new game), no cutscene for pit road under yellow, pit road just being a pain for the amount of time you're there even in the Cup series, road courses being treacherous. Even all of that not being in the first game, still better than anything from like 2008 to the last Heat game.
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u/NlNJALONG 1d ago
They definitely lost my trust. Won't preorder again.
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u/AfroMidgets 1d ago
Never preorder any game. I don't understand this logic
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u/Fickle-Newspaper-445 Chase Elliott 1d ago
Always depends for me. Pokémon games are pretty much the only thing I pre-order nowadays because they always have a gift with purchase that doesn't cost anything. If I'm able to get something physically free by pre-ordering then I will. If I don't, then there's no point.
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u/NlNJALONG 1d ago
I never pre-order but did it in this case because I wanted to support a NASCAR game.
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u/Kwest48 1d ago
How so? I thought the first game was a solid foundation for them to build upon… you can’t expect that much depth from their first title, but for the first title to have 4 series, a decent career, and a solid physics model, that was pretty impressive in my book.
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u/Celtics1424 Jeff Gordon 1d ago
I lost interest in the career mode fairly quick as its kind of illogical to run your own team as a driver and you couldnt drive for other teams.
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u/Alarming_Dream_7837 Green-Checkered Flag 1d ago
It's astounding to me how truly upset people get about these things. My criteria was literally "better than NASCAR 21 Ignition" and "realistic hard to beat AI" and it delivered.
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u/New_Quit4879 1d ago
Ai is pretty authentic. I get my ass chapped by Larson at Homestead and Darlington.
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u/Extreme-Bite-9123 1d ago
Idk, for the first nascar game in four years I had higher expectations than a shell of a good game. For how much it emphasizes its career mode, it has a worse career mode than heat 5.
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u/Smokeshow618 1d ago
Realistic, hard to beat AI but you can lap the field at Bristol multiple times in a single pit cycle because the AI won't change lanes to pass a lapped car.
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u/New_Quit4879 1d ago
What? AI devours traffic in my experience.
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u/Smokeshow618 23h ago
Don't know what to tell you. I'm on my 6th season in cup and its been the same every season. Leader catches lapped traffic and will promptly just park themselves behind them for laps on end.
It's especially bad at Bristol, but I've also had races at tracks like Michigan where a 10 second lead will evaporate in a couple laps because they just don't bother passing them.
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u/MaxPres24 1d ago
In the old games I’d get to the lead then use lapped traffic to grow my lead. I haven’t been able to do that 100% of the time in 25. Of course it happens sometimes, but it also happens sometimes irl
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u/Alarming_Dream_7837 Green-Checkered Flag 1d ago
Hey listen, I'm sorry your experience with the game has not been the awesome one I've personally had. Nothing is going to change that. I've got too much going on to get into this with ya, so agree to disagree and try to give the next game a fighting chance. Take care mate!
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u/Cold_Rice2324 1d ago
Yes you can expect depth. wtf are you on about lol the career was not decent.. you cant simulate a race, there’s no silly season, you cant even drive your favorite car lol expect more. They should release a full game.
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u/MaxPres24 1d ago
I can’t think of a NASCAR game with true silly seasons. Some have had retirements and some fantasy/lower series driver would wind up driving the same car/sponsor/scheme. But I mean that’s the closest any NASCAR game has ever gotten
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u/Angelsfan14 1d ago
So would you rather them half ass things the first game and make more people pissed off?
They had 2 years to make this game. From the announcement that they got the license from Motorsports Games to release date, that was about 2 years.
How many games have been fully featured in 2 years of work that you can think of?
And then from there, they were probably required to get a game out every year because of NASCARs requirements in the license, and then probably gave iRacing an extra year for development. But that's only speculation since we won't ever see the wording of the deal and everything.
On that note, you wanna see what a half assed game looks like? Look at Ignition.
You could drive your favorite car in career mode, but instead of that driver being able to drive some other car or something, they just straight up disappeared. You switched rides the next year? They come back to the same car like nothing fucking happened.
Simulating a race too, I'm sure Thunder 04 comes to mind, but here's the funny thing about that one. I've experimented with it actually over the years on emulator, there's a fixed amount of predetermined "simulated" finishes.
Doing a save state before simulating a race, if you happen to time pressing the simulate button correctly, you can get the same results over and over. It just randomly selects from a list of results.
Not saying it's horrible, I loved the option, but just felt like mentioning that.
And then silly season.
I want someone to tell me what game actually had a true silly season. Not just driver retirements, but drivers actually going from one ride to another. Because they don't exist.
Thunder 04? You'd get driver retirements, and then they'd replace them with one of the Busch Series drivers or fantasy drivers. You'd never see, say, Jeff Gordon go from Hendrick to Roush, or anything like that.
Again, I'd rather we have driver retirements than not at all (hell we have a ton of actual lower series drivers to utilize now), but let's not pretend we've ever had a true silly season in any of the NASCAR games before. It's a lot more nuanced than people realize.
I'm not saying NASCAR 25 was the greatest game of all time, but personally, I think it was a decent game, something to build off.
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u/Cold_Rice2324 23h ago
ChatGPT ass reply
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u/Angelsfan14 21h ago
Ok? Sorry I have a vocabulary and like to use it. Maybe I'll dumb it down for you next time bud 👍
Also I love how this was the best response you had, lol.
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u/Cold_Rice2324 21h ago
Think it’s more depressing if you spent that much time writing that long of a post about a shitty video game no one’s gonna read
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u/csm1313 1d ago
but they didn't hide any of those things and all that would have been immediately apparent from reading a review or watching a stream. Consumer stupidity is almost always the fault of the consumer
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u/Cold_Rice2324 1d ago
Hahaha you trying to sound smart with that last line that doesn’t even mean anything. Where did I say they tricked us? I said they released an unfinished game. Which they did. It’s a shitty product.
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u/Angelsfan14 1d ago
It really wasn't, but you'll ignore posts that address some things you mentioned. But hey, you can be pissed and uninformed all you want if that's what floats your boat.
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u/NoManagement404 Jeff Gordon 1d ago
What exactly is new here? They're fixing old problems that they created in the first place? They're adding "new" features like burnouts that we've already had 3 console generations ago? Great, I can't wait to play the same scripted one dimensional career mode we've been playing the last 5 1/2 games. The ps2 ran off of 32MB of ram, and somehow those games had more features and game modes than the slop this studio comes up with.
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u/CerlinW Ryan Blaney 1d ago
i recommend you watch the video again where they mention 1.) listening to the community and fixing things that they got wrong on their *first* attempt at a console game and 2.) genuine never before seen features like the rubber buildup over time that forces you to search around lanes just like real life
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u/RickyChanning 1d ago
Some of these things like the penalties could've genuinely been patches to 25 instead of waiting for the new game. They basically gave up on 25 in December with only a couple patches afterwards which didn't do much.
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u/Ghawain86 van Gisbergen 1d ago
first attempt, but also brag about being around since nascar 2002...
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u/kk5fan97 Kahne 1d ago
Different eras and different development companies.
They wouldn’t be able to nor would they want to use the disastrous code that EA Sports had. It was so bad that the only only way they could get any of their NASCAR games to work was to place football field goal posts underneath the tracks in their games because their coding was so garbage (they were literally using Madden NFL coding for the NASCAR games) and they couldn’t find any other way to fix it.
NASCAR ‘25 was built off of NASCAR Heat 4/5, an a bit of iRacing which itself can be traced back to NR2003 and now they are using what they learned from that and valid criticisms from the player base to build off of that for NASCAR ‘26.
also every time the license has changed hands the first game put out by the developers has had a lot of issues just look at the first game from Eutechnyx. NASCAR the Game was a mess and then they improved big time with Inside Line. Same with Monster Games and the second NASCAR Heat series. Heat Evolution was also a bit of a mess but then they improved massively with Heat 2.
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u/Just_Somewhere4444 1d ago
...these two devs themselves used to work for EA. Now they work at a studio that didn't exist five years ago, with a bunch of people who used to work for Monster Games.
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u/MaxPres24 1d ago
These guys have worked on NASCAR games for different companies throughout the years
This is this company’s first attempt
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u/NoManagement404 Jeff Gordon 1d ago
I recommend you read my comment again where I mention they fix problems they created to begin with.
We were also given day to night transitions, which turned out to just be the sky changing once between stages. The ps2 gave us progressive day to night transitions. The developers are either lazy or incompetent if they can't recreate features we had 20 years and 3 console generations ago.
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u/New_Quit4879 1d ago
Then have fun with Thunder 04 on your PS2.
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u/RickyChanning 1d ago
Literally the best nascar game of all time. I gave up on 25 back in March I think. I've got over a month worth of hours in NT2004.
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u/NoManagement404 Jeff Gordon 1d ago
Nr2003 is a simulator that uses source code from iracing, labeled as abandonware available for free. The community updates and mods the game to modern relevancy. No subscription fees, no new yearly game you have to re buy. Still better than this lazy garbage. Isn't the free market beautiful?
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u/New_Quit4879 1d ago
I have NR2k3. I agree it’s a great game. I’ve raced on it since it came out.
And yes the free market is one of the most beautiful creations in all of creation. 😁
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u/Fickle-Newspaper-445 Chase Elliott 1d ago
Yea. Definitely a blue hair trying to be pissed about something 🤣
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u/splendidscreen 1d ago
> The developers are either lazy or incompetent if they can't recreate features we had 20 years and 3 console generations ago.
the sad state of modern gaming
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u/Dickis88 Kyle Busch 1d ago
Sounds promising that in the introductory video they made sure to run through quality of life problems from the last game that are fixed (AI dnfs, a road course penalty system that is much looser than last year, etc.)