Seven racing games we’re looking forward to playing in 2024

We've never been terribly good at sticking to New Year's resolutions at the best of times, and our yearly promise to spend marginally less time in a darkened room playing racing videogames is under serious threat already for 2024. Games to look forward to in the next 12 months include a couple of big motorsport-themed simulation heavy hitters, a new entry from the best offroad driving series around and perhaps, finally, the release of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. Here are seven racing games we're looking forward to in 2024, and this is just the stuff that has already been announced...

January 11th

This retro collection compiles games from the 90s series of racing games that was known as Top Gear until someone – presumably just down the corridor from us – had a quiet word. The series is now referred to as Top Racer and if you're a fan of 90s racers like Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, this promises a pleasingly nostalgic blast from the past.

There are three classic games in the package and one bonus title, for a total of 140 tracks, and in true old school fashion, it features split-screen multiplayer. The game even includes a visual filter that makes it look like you're playing the game on a busted cathode ray tube television set. The only things missing are packet of Monster Munch and a complete absence of adult responsibility...

February 20th

It's been over two decades since there was a game dedicated to the world's most famous endurance race, but Le Mans Ultimate aims to remedy that in 2024. For our money, there's no better timing either, sportscar racing is in rude health; manfacturers including Porsche and Ferrari are committed to the 24 hours for the next few years, with plenty more on the way.

Underpinning the game is the same technology that powers rFactor 2, long considered a gold standard in simulation and it also encompasses the entire World Endurance Championship season, if you were worried about endlessly lapping just a single circuit. And if the prospect of competing for a full 24 hours frightens you, there's an asynchronous mode that allows you to complete your stints at a time convenient to you. So you can remove that pack of adult diapers from your Amazon basket...

TBA 2024

Making a continued mockery of our annual attempts to get excited for racing games, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown has appeared in the last two of these annual lists. Repeated delays have kept the game out of our hands, but the developers have pinky promised it's coming in 2024.

We're hoping the delays have been used to polish the game to a mirrored sheen, because the concept of a one-to-one scale Hong Kong playground and a brace of supercars in which to cut about has us extremely hot under the collar. With the first Test Drive Unlimited game the true originator of the sort of seamless open world racer we've enjoyed in the Forza Horizon and Crew series, we're hoping for something a little bit special from this.

Summer 2024

Full disclosure, this screenshot isn't from Assetto Corsa 2, it's from the previous game Assetto Corsa Competizione. That's because no-one has yet seen a single image from the upcoming game, in spite of the fact it's due to arrive in summer of next year. If it were any more secretive, it would be wearing a fake moustache and peeping through eyeholes cut in a newspaper.

We don't know a lot, but after the motorsport-focused Competizione spin-off, we're expecting road cars to make a welcome return. Some of our happiest simracing hours were spent hustling an E30 BMW M3 around in the original AC, and the game still has a huge online community playing it, some nine years after its initial release, so you'll forgive us if we accidentally salivate on ourselves at the prospect of a proper sequel.

TBA 2024

We're going to ignore the faintly oxymoronic title and give Hot Lap Racing the benefit of the doubt. In spite of a budget that's clearly barely more than the yearly coffee spend of the heavy hitters of the genre, this 'simcade' title is aiming to include real cars and real circuits spanning the history of motorsport. We've already spied a 60s Ford GT40 in there and the inclusion of Mygale F3 and F4 chassis means we'll be getting some open wheel kicks as well. Oh and most of the screenshots and footage released so far take place at sunset, so there's a small chance the game takes place in an apocalyptic future where the world has stopped spinning on its axis. We'll keep you posted on that one.

5th March

If we'd known that science could involve churning around the countryside on big knobbly tyres, we'd probably have spent a bit more time concentrating at school. Expeditions takes the tried and tested Mudrunner formula and applies it to scientific studies out in the wilderness. In addition to climbing behind the wheel of a variety of specialised off-road vehicles, you'll be deploying technology like drones and vehicle mounted metal detectors to achieve your research objectives.

We've long admired the Mudrunner series, which boasts truly astonishing off-road physics and somehow manages to make entertaining games out of driving extremely slowly, so we'll be there on day one for this one. Unlike our science homework, which was usually there on day four or five...

TBA 2024

If we were putting money on any of these games to slip outside of 2024, it would probably be GTRevival. That's because it's attempting some exceptionally ambitious stuff, including harnessing artificial intelligence to generate context sensitive commentary and pit crew audio. At least it makes a change from people using AI to create fictional Instagram influencers.

While this is built by the core team behind the Project CARS series, the word 'revival' in the title points to an attempt to recapture the alchemical motorsport magic of their previous games from the mid 2000s, GTR and particularly GTR 2. Adding classic FIA GT1 cars like the Ferrari 550 Maranello, Chrysler Viper GT-R and Lister Storm from those games is certainly a good place to start, but the game will also feature more modern GT3 machinery, including the Ferrari 296 GT3. If it goes as good as it already looks, this could be an instant classic...