At first glance, it may be hard to distinguish which is the real Laguna Seca racetrack, but in reality, the image you see on the right is just Project CARS (Community Assisted Racing Simulator). It’s a racing simulation video game in development by Slightly Mad Studios, and funding for the game is raised by the community and the developers themselves, without the financial aid of a traditional publisher. Through the purchase of Tool Packs players can contribute to development in roles including content creation, QA, and marketing media. Members gain special perks, depending on their purchased tool pack. Members will receive a share of game sales profits generated within the first 2 years after launch as compensation for their efforts, to be paid quarterly. Continue reading for the side-by-side comparison video.

The finished game is intended to represent a realistic driving simulation, while directly attracting fans of industry leaders: Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport. In order to embrace all skill levels, Slightly Mad Studios offers gamers (with or without a digital wheel) various driver aids and input filtering methods. The game adopts a further developed version of the Madness engine, which was the basis for the Need for Speed Shift titles. More processing power available in modern computers allows the introduction of a dynamic tire model named “SETA”, rather than the steady-state model based on lookup tables as seen in previous generation simulations.

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