That racing game you’ve had your eye on is massively discounted on Steam this weekend

Toothpaste? That’ll be seven quid, please. Need a new bottle of olive oil? Yikes, maybe they’ll let you pay in instalments. Racing games, though, for this weekend only, are not subject to the cost of living crisis. Thanks to Steam’s Racing Fest (a fancy name for a sale) a huge number of driving titles are discounted until August 4th, so this weekend’s a good opportunity to buy one for far fewer quids than usual. 

We’re not being hyperbolic here, either. There are discounts of 80-90% on bona fide good games that people actually play. We’ve picked out the best deals below.

Ubisoft’s open-world racer recently added a kind of digital Ferrari museum tour to its live service offering, along with some delectable automotive additions like the F50 (frankly too fast) and the F80 (likewise, but with a big black bar). It drives similarly to Forza Horizon, but unlike Playground Games’ otherwise imperious series, the PvP racing is great. It’s being supported really well with both free and paid content after launch, too, so for this price it’s a genuine bargain. 

ACC, as it’s known to its mates, has been the competitive racing sim to beat since it first arrived in 2019. In that time, it’s never been on sale at a cheaper price than this. Long-term, it’s looking like the GT3 racing community will migrate to its successor Assetto Corsa Evo, but while the latter’s still in early access development this is still the very best way to send Valentino Rossi’s M4 around Spa. 

Four pounds and nineteen pence. That would buy approximately half a croissant in an east London bakery, or a riotously enjoyable arcade racer with deep car customisation and a 190E designed by A$AP Rocky. While the latter half of that sentence might have had you coming round to the idea of a £5 semi-croissant, we promise that NFS Unbound is an absolute blast. Plus, let’s face it, you designed much worse custom jobs in Need For Speed Underground. 

The fact this excellent management series got canned after last year’s release is one of life’s great injustices. But let’s console ourselves with the fact that F1 Manager 24 still exists. They can’t take that away from us. A chance to be Toto. To throw your headset at your desk in disgust when it’s so, so not right. A chance to be the one in charge of pit strategy at Ferrari, or the one who decides Red Bull’s second driver. It’s a deep, thoughtful, impressively authentic simulation of the wider Formula One ecosystem that shines both during race weekends and between them. And it’s less than a tenner. 

Granted, the level of discount isn’t as outrageously generous as some other titles on this list. But LMU has only just released in 1.0 form. That, plus the inherent excellence of its WEC driving experience, are important context here. “It’s packed with the most exciting racing machinery operating anywhere in the world,” we said in our Le Mans Ultimate review. It’s robust to drive, looks confrontationally gorgeous on your screen, and you can even take on actual 24-hour races in co-op if you fancy. 

Art school indie games and virtual racing seldom cross paths, but what Art of Rally tells us, in a soft, soothing voice, is that they should do more often. Imagine a rally game boiled down to its most concentrated and essential parts, visualised by someone who knows more about art than you do, and realised with a simplicity that makes you notice how much time other games seem to spend faffing about in menus, connecting to servers and showing you season passes. It’s sheer simplicity. Semi-recognisable rally beasts in unlicensed form and filtered through ‘90s-vision, taking loose surface corners at pleasing angles.  

The first thing to say about this one is that there are no cars in it. But when you think about it, there aren’t actually any cars in any of these games. It’s all just pixels, converging on your screen to give you a sense of enjoyment from propelling forwards through digital space. So stop being so hardline, put this wingsuit on and chuck yourself down a mountain in it. 

Riders Republic got a bit lost in the noise at launch in 2021, but its multi-disciplinary open world of downhill mountain biking, snowboarding, skiing, wingsuit flying and wearing baseball caps with energy drink logos on them has proven to be an enduring formula.

Another recent release, Wreckfest 2 is a rare and special breed of racing game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Being wilfully taken out during an online race is the low point of any other racing title, but here it’s a chance to enjoy the incredible damage model and exercise some catharsis. For anyone who’s fretted about their safety rating in more serious sims, Wreckfest is a safe space where sending someone into the tire wall is an absolutely valid way to defend your position.