Yay, Steam's most realistic racing sim's finally getting actual rain, and utter online chaos may well follow
While it’s so good at simulating driving cars very fast that it actually stood in for the real thing during the Covid-19 pandemic, subscription-based racing game iRacing has long lacked a key thing that regularly affects real races - rain. Thankfully that’s not going to be a thing for much longer, and players are both excited and mildly anxious.
Yes, a racing sim so realistic that it’s used for competitive Esports, and is regularly played by real drivers including actual current F1 world champion Max Verstappen, has not had any rain in it since it came out. Soon, though, that’s going to change via a big build update that’ll make a lot of players wet and also deliver some precipitation.
“The Tempest weather system is ready for release and you will be racing in the rain in March,” reads iRacing’s latest development update post, which is very, very chunky and full of things. To be fair, a decent amount of it is spent bigging up the rain, with iRacing Senior Vice President and Executive Producer Greg Hill writing: “This is rain done the iRacing way; a true-to-life dynamic simulation of the multitude of physical and environmental factors experienced in racing in the rain, and how water interacts with both the racetrack and the tires of your race car.”