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.