SimBin Warming Up RACE Game

The GTR franchise has become somewhat of a synonym for SimBin's development efforts, ever since their first FIA GT racing game was released in early 2005. And with the GTR 2 sequel just about ready for start, the Swedish developer is now announcing its next project: RACE (these guys sure love to keep it simple; and we love them for that). Co-piloting the RACE project is none other than Eurosport, who partnered with SimBin and will be promoting the game on TV through a heavy, global marketing campaign. At some point in the future...

Based on WTCC (World Touring Car Championship - one of the three official FIA world championships alongside Formula 1 and WRC), the new RACE franchise is aiming straight for the top of the racing game genre. The game will adopt WTCC's "two-race format", where points from two separate race events during one race weekend are added together, to determine the final score for the weekend. This, says SimBin's CEO Henrik Roos, "will guarantees the player more intensity and bumper to bumper action than found in any other racing game on the market". Hmm... does that include GTR2?

Naturally, RACE will feature the complete WTCC championship season of 2006: all the cars, drivers and locations, and among these there will also be several official tracks and cars brand new to the racing game genre. Corresponding to the WTCC 2006 calendar, SimBin's game will feature the following 10 tracks: Monza (IT), Magny-Cours (FR), Brands Hatch (GB), Oschersleben (DE), Curitiba (Brazil), Puebla (Mexico), Brno (CZ), Istanbul (TR), Valencia (SP) and Macau.

Further info and the release date will be announced later this month at the Leipzig Games Convention, and in the meatime the official RACE website is online, packed with game details and featured cars and tracks.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)