Project CARS 3

I am the intended audience for Project Cars 3. I play racing games with a controller. Games like Project Cars 1 and 2, and other simulator-focused driving games are designed to be played with racing wheels, and rarely are they comfortable to control with a gamepad. Hell, even casual games like Forza 6 and 7 ended up being frustrating to tackle with a gamepad. They don’t feel right, and on top of that, they don’t feel like video games. They’re ‘simulators’, and in that regard, Project Cars 1 and 2 were some great options if you’re the kind of driver that wants to feel the effects of your tires warming up during a race in real time. Aside from the hardcore realistic tire physics, the Project Cars 2 has a MASSIVE, widely varied track list, one of the best selections I’ve seen in any racing game. In short, I have a lot of respect for Project Cars 2, but it’s not my kind of game.

So here comes Project Cars 3, a Project Cars game designed for casual gamepad-using racing game fans. The amazing track list remains, but it’s presented more like what you’d expect from a Codemasters game. And in this regard, it pulls off this identity switch rather well! But not without some major problems holding it back, unfortunately.

Before I dive into the game itself, I agree with the sentiment that this game should not have been called Project Cars 3. No matter what angle you come at it from, the title doesn’t work. PC2 fans get misled into thinking PC3 is another simulator, and people who are put off by the hardcore simulator physics of PC2 end up avoiding PC3 thinking it’s going to be the same game. All it really needed was some kind of subtitle, like Project Cars: Unleashed or something comparatively silly to get the idea across. Worse still, if you’re a PC player instead of a console player (which most racing sim fans are) and you want to buy the actual simulator on Steam… you can’t. Project Cars 1 and 2 have been removed from Steam, leaving PC3 as the only available option. The ‘outrage’ is at least somewhat justified in this regard, though in any case, the blame belongs to the publisher (Bandai Namco) rather than the Project Cars devs.

For now though, let’s pretend this is the timeline where PC3 is released as a spinoff game instead and everyone’s happy. The structure of this game is simple. The cars and events are divided up into class, similar to Forza. Each event has three different ‘challenges’ you complete, whether it’s setting fast times, doing clean laps, winning races and so on. The more challenges you complete, the more events you unlock. It’s a simple progression system that should work fine for a racing game like this one. PC3 is littered with other smaller distractions to keep the player busy, like XP gauges and ‘mastering’ tracks.

By this point, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Project Cars 3 should have been called Project Shift 3, instead! If you’ve ever played Need for Speed: Shift, or Shift 2 Unleashed, you’ll recognize that the style of gameplay is nearly identical, with a lesser focus on arcade goofiness. And there’s nothing wrong with that! I actually like the first two Shift games, and PC3 is made by the same developers. With a 10 year gap since the last Shift game, PC3 ends up being a throwback to that late 2000s sim-arcade hybrid, but with updated graphics and physics. On paper, it sounds like a great game, but it has some serious problems holding it back.

The first big problem only applies to console players which, considering the game is targeted at a casual audience, should be taken into consideration. It runs like complete ass. I played this game on an Xbox Series X with the ‘prioritize framerate’ option ticked on, but it didn’t matter. The framerate is constantly chugging balls, especially when rain is involved, and there’s no ideal way to prevent this. Even when you’re in first place, the framerate drops are super noticeable when weather effects are active, which are automatically enabled for many events. Playstation enjoyers shouldn’t start celebrating, however, because the game apparently runs even worse when running on PS4 Pro specs. Or in other words, if you play this on console, it’s going to be a choppy experience.

Which is too bad, because do these races really need 30 cars on them at the same time to be fun? Like, this is fine for tracks like Daytona, but when you put a dozen Aston Martins on a tiny track like Cadwell Park, the gameplay starts becoming way too silly. Especially since the AI cars are all jerky around each other. The congestion becomes comical and you end up flying right past big groups of cars in early corners. It’s fun having super aggressive AI drivers constantly buzzing past you, but you don’t need 20+ cars on the track to make this happen.

Then there’s a second major problem that can’t be avoided no matter what system you’re playing this on. The credits system in PC3 is possibly the worst I’ve seen in any racing game. You don’t earn credits from completing challenges or winning races. You only earn credits from ranking your driver level up while grinding out XP. Unfortunately for the player, the events in this game do not give nearly enough XP for the player to progress through the game naturally. Add in all the events that require you to buy a new car, and you’ll have to accept that you’re going to HAVE to grind out custom events constantly to earn more money. If you thought progress in those early Gran Turismo games was slow, you’ve seen nothing yet.

And while I do think Project Cars 3 is a great game to play casually just to have some fun driving on their wide selection of tracks, I’m not sure if it’s so great that I’d be willing to grind out XP for hours just to progress through it. Without these problems, I’d recommend this game for sure. But as it stands, I would probably only recommend it for PC players who aren’t afraid to bust out the cheat engine.

A recent trend in racing games is to take a franchise that has a certain identity, then change it. Dirt took a different direction with Dirt Showdown, Grid changed with Grid Autosport, Forza had Forza Horizon. This is one of those games.

It’s still fairly realistic, but is more forgiving and has an arcade presentation - it’s more colourful, especially in the menus. The graphical models are similar to the previous game - slightly tweaked in places, mainly a change in colour palette or lighting. Weather effects have been downgraded. Sound doesn’t seem as good either.

Damage is also just cosmetic and doesn’t impact the performance of your car. Some features have been removed like tyre wear, fuel use and therefore - pits. Overall, it seems like a simplification and loses the pure sim racing speciality that the franchise was known for.

The Career mode is split into car classes, then these have groups of 4 events. In each event, there’s 3 challenges and you need to complete these to unlock other events. The thing is, it is rare that the challenge is to win, it might just be to “master x corners”, “draft then overtake”, “reach x mph”. It’s a very weird decision. The fourth event is unlocked by completing 6 challenges in the other 3 events which can be difficult to do.

You now purchase cars and can purchase upgrades. Money is achieved by levelling up rather than winning races. You can gain bonus XP for hitting the correct racing line when entering/exiting corners, and other aspects like hitting top speed, leading the race etc. Money is quite hard to come by, so you sometimes need to grind. XP can be earned outside of the career mode, so you can set-up single player races, or play the online events - one mode is just racing against target times, so you don’t race against human players in real time.

It's a linear progression system so you work your way through the tiers and can easily get stuck because of the restrictions. Previous games allowed you to jump into whichever tier you wanted. Also, the very first tier was Go-Karts but they do not feature here - and this is another aspect that makes it feel like it isn’t “Project Cars”.
You need to be really careful which cars you purchase. For example, you may just purchase a random car for the few events where the restriction might simply be “C class”, but then the next events might be “C class from Germany”. So if you bought an Italian car, then you will need to purchase a German car. Some events require a very specific car, so you need to read all upcoming events and choose the car that can race in the highest number of events. So there may well be loads of cars in the game, but you can’t really choose them because of the limited money.

If you do have spare cash, you can pay a fee to unlock races instead of meeting the challenge requirement.

There’s a few different event types; Short races. “Hot Lap” races, then there’s one where it is a time trial over 3 laps. This is difficult because hitting the wall or having a tyre leave the track invalidates your entire time. Not only that, but the target times are very challenging so you will have to gamble on a few corners and hit them at high speeds. In the other race modes, you are penalised by your engine cutting out and you temporarily become a ghost so that the opposition can drive through you.
I encountered frame-rate drops and my PC ran hot while playing. The loading times are excessive and it's frustrating that you are returned to the specific event menu when you have completed the race. So if you press A again, you will go through the lengthy loading screen to play the race again. So you have to remember you need to press B to go back one level to the main event selection.

There’s a few DLC packs that boost the career mode events quite significantly. I didn’t have these, but it could be the case that this allows you to gain more XP to earn more money which could help.

Project Cars 3 annoyed many fans of the series by changing the style but still insisting on using the brand name. Even if you approach it knowing that it’s not quite “Project Cars”, the race restrictions mean the game is constantly trying to push you away; you easily get stuck and have to grind. I did my best to persevere and get as far as I could, but there is only so much chance you are going to give it.

This game gets a lot of bad rep, but honestly as long as you forget the Project Cars branding it's quite fun. PC1 was very sim-like (I played it with a controller and did not have a good time, and supposedly that's a universal experience), while this game I can play just fine with my Xbox One controller.
It's not very realistic, but it's fun, and in the end that counts. All the little things to level up and do (every car has individual XP levels!!!) make for very addicting gameplay. Though I am a sucker for levelling systems,
The car selection and variety is good, physics are servicable (not great but atleast playable with a gamepad unlike PC1, though i'm sure fans of PC1 will hate the feel of this game), and the career has satisfying progression.

In the end, anyone who wants more of Project Cars 1 will be severely dissapointed, but if you come in basically expecting a sidegrade of Forza Motorsport you'll probably get your money's worth.