The 7 best sim racing games

Assetto Corsa Competizione

We’ll start with an IP that has grown in stature since its initial rather limited release on PC in 2014. Developer Kunos Simulazioni has always prided itself on the realism of Assetto Corsa’s physics and tyre simulations, and it laid the foundation for Assetto Corsa Competizione, which is by far and away the most detailed representation of GT racing currently available.

As of September 2024, you can choose to race in either GT2, GT3 or GT4 categories in cars spanning 2012 to the present day from manufacturers including Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and Porsche. Each has been accurately rendered with authentic sound design and representative handling characteristics that give every car its own subtle challenge.

The base game offers 11 tracks to race on, and all the big names are there from Barcelona, Brands Hatch, the Hungaroring, Monza, the Nürburgring, Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps. A long list of DLC additions expands that list to 25, with Bathurst, COTA, Donington Park, Laguna Seca, Snetterton and Suzuka among the bonus circuits.

In all, the amount of content on offer makes for a good amount of variety, and it’ll take a good while before you find yourself getting tired of repeated car and track combinations. It’s also a very accessible game thanks to a number of sliding options that allow you to tailor the physics and the level of challenge to your liking – particularly useful if you’re playing with a controller.

It’s a difficult thing to quantify, but Assetto Corsa Competizione might be the best sim racing game currently on sale. The fact it currently holds the licence as the official platform for all SRO Esports events including the GT World Challenge and that it was also used for the FIA Motorsport Games Esports Cup in 2022, is hardly surprising.

iRacing

Away from the malleable experience of Assetto Corsa, iRacing takes the idea of simulation and brings it as close to realism as possible. There are no niceties or video game-esque concessions here, unless you want to be treated like a real racing driver, with all the pain and pressure that comes with that, iRacing is probably not for you.

It’s a subscription-based online sim racer that was first launched back in 2008, with regular updates that have kept the graphics, physics and available cars as fresh as possible year on year. The goal with iRacing is to create an environment that mimics the actual experience of being a racing driver, often restricting players to the cockpit-only view, rather than allowing for an exterior follow cam. It uses LIDAR scanning for cars and circuits to deliver an authentic experience with every small undulation and imperfection in the surface recreated as it would be if you were driving it in your own car.

The online races are all serious business, too, with players and game developers alike keen on maintaining a strict regulation on driving standards to ensure the authenticity is not hindered or spoiled. Each player has a licence that reflects their experience level, and any poor behaviour on track will be penalised with ‘incident points’ which affect their ‘safety rating’. It’s a well thought out system that helps to fit players into a suitable race with players of similar standard.

A base subscription will give you a choice of 24 cars covering NASCAR, sportscars, prototypes, single-seaters, rallycross and oval racers. You can choose to purchase up 150 in total, with the latest field of IMSA GTP cars, the Mercedes W13 F1 car and three generations of IndyCar all on the list.

Assetto Corsa

Another long-serving title is of course Assetto Corsa (AC). Kunos’ do-it-all circuit racer serves as much the racing fans as it does road car enthusiasts with driving physics on a racing wheel that more serious Forza and Gran Turismo players have always pined for. The variety of machinery is solid in the Ultimate Edition version of the game. If you’re on PC, the selection – of cars and locations – is near-on endless, thanks to the dedicated and active modding community.

The racers are just as dedicated, though the platform lacks the framework of discipline to get the more serious drivers away from those with less discipline and a penchant for contact. At the very least AC is a great game on which to build up your driving skills, if not the very best to partake in racing at the highest level.

Project Cars 2

A tricky one, this, because you can’t actually buy Project Cars 2 anymore, at least not in digital form from an online store. It was a sad moment when it was announced that it would be delisted from sale due to expiring licences, because it brought sim racing to a more casual audience that perhaps would have been intimidated by the hardcore authenticity of iRacing. The good news is, if you already own the game, or can find a pre-owned hard copy, that the servers are all still up and running, so the option to play is still there if you want it.

It's certainly a more traditional video game experience than the focused modus operandi of Assetto Corsa and iRacing. In total, with all the various DLCs, you’ll have access to 146 different track layouts from 60 locations and 197 cars. The cars themselves were designed with painstaking attention to detail and collaborations with the manufacturers themselves to ensure authentic recreations of the different driving behaviours you’d come across in the real world. The list of cars is also as varied as it is broad, spanning 1959 to 2017 and covering a range of disciplines and categories.

A major feature of the game is the realism of its environments. The majority of circuits have been laser scanned for detailed accuracy, but Project Cars 2 implements new time and weather systems which allow for realistic changes in conditions as the race progresses.

If you’re lucky enough to still have access to this game then it remains a very detailed and satisfying sim racer. It’s not perfect, the AI is prone to stunted decision making that can be disruptive if you’re keen to enjoy a seamless experience, but at its best you’ll find yourself sinking hours into hunting for that extra precious tenth of a second.

rFactor 2

If only the ultimate in vehicle dynamics and physics simulation will do, then rFactor 2 is the sim racer that comes the closest to delivering a match for the real thing. Since it was first launched in 2013 it has enjoyed immense popularity thanks in no small part to its association with rFactor pro, which was used by several Formula 1 teams over the years for their own simulator systems.

The rFactor 2 engine is highly advanced, with detailed systems that can simulate things like chassis flex and suspension geometry characteristics to deliver a much more accurate representation of a vehicle’s behaviour. The developers also incorporated an intricate tyre physics model that can simulate realistic heat transfer between the carcass and the surface, with accurate wear according to interactions with a similarly detailed track surface as rubber is transferred from the tyres to the road in real time. Basically, what we’re saying is that the engine behind rFactor 2 leaves absolutely no stone unturned in delivering the ultimate driving experience.

And that’s just all the nerdy stuff. It’s quite easy to forget that it is still a game, and there are plenty of cars on offer for you to play around with. The BTCC, Sports Prototypes, GTE and GT3, Formula E, Formula 1 and NASCAR are all accounted for, while the list of available tracks is long and illustrious. You can get racing on up 48 tracks including Road Atalanta, Monza, Brands Hatch, Spa-Francorchamps, Zandvoort Laguna Seca, the Circuit de la Sarthe, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and several Formula E venues. But aside from all the original content, rFactor 2’s main attraction is its modding community, which has made the scope of the game almost endless for you race any car from any era on any circuit.

Le Mans Ultimate

From the developers of rFactor comes Le Mans Ultimate, the official of the FIA World Endurance Championship and the Le Mans 24 Hours designed to bring the new era of sportscar racing into our living rooms. It’s currently available in Early Access, which means it’s not yet in a complete state, and is being continually developed by Studio 397 according to ongoing testing and player feedback.

Featuring a list of cars that includes the entire WEC grid of 2023, supplemented by Hypercars that entered the series in 2024 from Alpine, BMW and Lamborghini. That means you have 12 hypercars in all, with two LMP2 chassis and four GTE cars, each with several livery options to denote the different teams. The track listing boasts the complete 2023 WEC calendar plus Imola and the Circuit of the Americas, so aside from Lusail, you have the entire 2024 schedule to play with too.

Its close ties to rFactor mean that many of those class-leading simulation features make an appearance here, too, including the Real Road 2.0 system that accurately represents the evolution of the track surface over time – a massive element of endurance racing. Dynamic weather effects are also being developed, as are the cars themselves, that will deteriorate authentically as dirt and debris builds up.

If you’re looking for the ultimate Le Mans experience then this is it, the designers have got the name right. They’ve included some pretty neat features, too, such as asynchronous online play that allows you and friends to complete a full 24-hour race at your own convenience. When you pull into the pits at the end of your stint, your team-mate can jump in whenever they’re available to continue the race. The game for now is out on Steam, and console releases are not out of the question once development of the game is complete.

Automobilista 2

Next up we have Automobilista 2, which is built on the same Madness engine originally developed for Project Cars. It was plagued with issues immediately after launch, but over time the developers have rectified issues with the physics and general usability to deliver a game that has become acclaimed among sim racers generally.

With updated versions of the tyre physics and track surface simulation found in Project Cars, Automobilista 2 delivers a somewhat recognisable experience to that game, albeit with a slightly more nuanced feel that has been spread across a much wider variety of cars.

Although many aren’t officially licenced, there are recognisable replicas of F1 machinery from the 1960s right through until the mid-2000s. Automobilista does however have licences with McLaren, Lotus and Brabham, so you can climb into the cockpit of some of history’s most memorable racing cars.

There’s also a good selection of prototypes including current GTP cars from BMW and Porsche, GT machinery from Mercedes and the McLaren F1 GTR, there’s an M1 Procar, 1974 Porsche 911 RSR and even a handful of road cars to choose from.

Then there’s the list of circuits, which is massive. Think of a race track, it’s probably here, but you can also choose from which era you’d like to race it. Spielberg circa 1974? Spa-Francorchamps 1970? Imola in its current form? There are a lot of very cool options here, and this alone makes Automobilista 2 one of the more intriguing games on this list. 

Gran Turismo 7

And finally, of course we have to include the sim racer that made sim racing popular. Gran Turismo has long been the poster child of mainstream racing games, particularly on console where it has ruled the roost on PlayStation since 1997. Now in its seventh full iteration, GT is still holding firm as a major player on the market.

It’s been on sale now for more than two years, and following a troubled initial launch it has been gradually perfected over a protracted development cycle that has seen several tweaks to the physics engine and a huge inflation in the number of available cars and circuits. The handling has been fettled and measured with accurate simulations of the car’s real characteristics, but it’s definitely a more relaxed approach than the uptight perfection-or-bust attitude of more focused sims.

It may not have the complex simulation systems of an iRacing or rFactor, but where those titles major on detail and accuracy, Gran Turismo leans more towards accessibility and cool factor. It’s a story-driven game first and foremost, where players need to embark on a journey to unlock the cars they want to drive.

You have to learn how to drive effectively, but you won’t be scared away by overwhelming complexity. The focus is on enjoying the cars themselves, rather than worrying too much about how they feel. Revelling in the sights and sounds rather than getting bogged down in tyre temperatures. It’s a different approach to sim racing, but a popular one nonetheless, and perhaps the first step on a journey towards other titles on this list.

Honourable mentions...

EA Sports WRC

Taking over development from Kyloton, some expected EA’s re-entry into the WRC world might fall a bit flat. Quite the opposite is the case. Using its extensive experience with its Dirt franchise in combination with a more down-the-line tone an official title should take, EA WRC 2023 turned out pretty damn well for controller and wheel players alike.

The WRC franchise, going back through Generations, and the various numbered titles Kyloton provided, is a delight, though EA’s triple-A resources have definitely been felt in a good way in this latest release.