GTR Revival: Straight4 Studios Needs Your Help

Straight 4 studios.jpg
In the middle of developing its new game, GTR Revival, Straight4 Studios is looking for help as it determines the game's key focus. The team is seemingly looking at recreating one epic moment in motorsport history, but can't decide between four options. Now's your chance to shape a simulator.

Rising from the ashes of what was the team behind the legendary GTR 2, Straight4 Studios may sound like a thoroughly unimpressive name. Honestly, why not call it V12 or Flat 6. Anyway, the team has slowly been releasing teasers of its newest project and is now looking for help from the community.

Straight4 Studios, headed by Ian Bell, is currently working on its next venture GTR Revival. The game is set to follow on from the legendary status of the GTR series which focused on the FIA GT Series of its day. GT1 and GT2 cars roaring around some of the best circuits in the world certainly made the old Simbin titles great.

Still looking to focus on a fan favourite series and era, the development team is asking for the opinion of the community as to which specific moment in motorsport it is to recreate. Four options feature on the poll found on the Straight4 Studios website.

Late-1990s BTCC​

The late-1990s were an impressive time in the British Touring Car Championship. The Super Tourer regulations had just hit a point at which budgets were exceeding those of Formula 1, the cars were mind-boggling pieces of engineering and the drivers appeared to be super heroes.


Ever since the original TOCA Touring Car games, this is an era that has lacked representation in the simracing industry. However, a recent and popular mod in Assetto Corsa has brought this time back from the back of our minds.

A game focusing on the ins and outs of the Super Tourer era would be a fantastic proposition. However, the other periods mentioned in the poll have seen even less love in simracing's history.

Historic Trans Am​

Today, Trans Am is a relatively unknown form of purist motorsport. Massive V8 engines, H-pattern gearboxes and heavy chassis make for a NASCAR road course racing on steroids experience. But back in the championship's early days, around the late-1960s and early-1970s, the championship thrived with road-relevant muscle cars on the best American circuits.


Models like the Dodge Challenger, Ford Mustang and AMC Javelin went head to head in a race on Sunday, sell on Monday ethos. While the V8-powered muscle cars dominated the over 2-litre class, European saloons took to the under-2-litre category. Alfa Romeos, BMWs and even Fiats raced on the same weekends as the big boys.

Straight4 Studios is offering the simracing community the chance to race in this era of motorsport. A niche national championship much forgotten by many, there must surely be a fan base out there that would love to see this idea come to life.

Can Am​

Much like Trans Am, Can Am was a regional series that travelled the North American continent. Motorsport fans may have heard of cars like the McLaren M8F and Ferrari 712M. These massively powerful, significantly light machines were absolute rocket ships, testament to what happens when you give manufacturers a near-empty rule book and infinite budgets.


Often surpassing the 1000hp mark in qualifying, these Group 7 cars raced around the North American circuit. Or they did until the sport became too expensive compared to other forms of motorsport around the mid-1970s.

The Canadian-American Challenge Cup thrived in the early-1970s just before the series began to tumble. This is the era Straight4 is interested in covering. Other than the odd impressive, yet uncontrollable racer, Can-Am and Group 7 have remained anonymous throughout the course of racing games. Could this be the series' time to flourish in the eyes of simracers?

1973 World Sportscars​

In 2023, we are entering a golden age of enduance racing. The FIA WEC and IMSA championship haven't seen such top-class participation in a number of decades. But fifty years ago, the sportscar racing scene was also seemingly living one of its greatest times to date.


Mixing Group 5 open top prototype sportscars and Group 4 GT racers, the series visited countless infamous events. Le Mans, Daytona, the Targa Florio and the 1000km of the Nurburgring. All these events were contested as part of the WSC and made for some of the most exciting endurance racing seen to this day.

This was also the last time Ferrari competed in the top class at Le Mans, surely making it worthy of representation in the simracing world. Other brands like Matra, Porsche, Chevrolet and Lola showed themselves throughout the 1973 season.

Which of these four championships and eras would you like to see as the focus for GTR Revival?
About author
Angus Martin
Motorsport gets my blood pumping more than anything else. Be it physical or virtual, I'm down to bang doors.

Comments

But all of that already exists for existing sims. If you're creating a new sim, give us something we don't already have.
Most of the other stuff mentioned seems to be already in sim in some form or another, I was expecting a modern take on GTR1+2.
 
Premium
Is anyone having trouble with this site NOT working correctly? I click on the notifications, it says somebody commented on my comment and I end up buried in the middle of the thread without any idea what topic he responded to.
I thought it was just me being not premium not getting the comment I was notified of... and with the adverts flick around annoyingly often moving the thread I'm reading up and down is making it an unpleasant experience.
so yeah, yeah it's not working properly or at least as it used to.
 
If you click once on "Alerts" ( the bell top right )
You can see what threads have a like or comment.
If you want to read a comment click on the highlighted thread topic.
This saves having to refresh anything unless you wish.

P.S. You can also right click on the arrowed topic and "open a new tab" so as not to interfere with anything else you are doing.

alerts rd.jpg
 
Last edited:
Been doing that for years Durge, but what is happening now, instead of getting to the comment, it takes me back to the Ferrari Twitter pic instead of whatever post I'm actually looking for.
 
Premium
If you click once on "Alerts" ( the bell top right )
You can see what threads have a like or comment.
If you want to read a comment click on the highlighted thread topic.
This saves having to refresh anything unless you wish.

P.S. You can also right click on the arrowed topic and "open a new tab" so as not to interfere with anything else you are doing.

View attachment 645812
Yeah, that's the bit that's not working properly, I'm very briefly sent to that comment then it flicks away to the middle of the thread, so I then have to scroll to find the right comment again.
 
I guess BTCC would be a great and popular choice in Europe. My personal wish would be CanAm. This series is really not that well presented in sims. There are some mods and even some cars of very high quality, but a full CanAm simulation would be absolutely mind blowing.
 
Yeah, that's the bit that's not working properly, I'm very briefly sent to that comment then it flicks away to the middle of the thread, so I then have to scroll to find the right comment again.
yep, verified. very annoying, started yesterday, must have been some update to either the site or to the browser. Using Edge.
edit: sent a message to RD, maybe they'll get on it.
 
Last edited:
My advice, buy yourself and another member a sub.
I spend more on DLC cars I have never driven. :redface:

e2ec6b073063bf413a6eb6e88c681eea.jpg
 
Premium
Great advice for those of us with disposable income, some of us in the UK have tight belts.
 
Is anyone having trouble with this site NOT working correctly? I click on the notifications, it says somebody commented on my comment and I end up buried in the middle of the thread without any idea what topic he responded to.
Oh thought it was just my primary stationary PC. Have got really bad here the last couple of days.
Though a bit less confusing response using my phone.
Dunno if its due to change in commercial blocks design, haven't activated any add blocking on my prime PC while TotalAV's is active on my phone.
 
If you click once on "Alerts" ( the bell top right )
You can see what threads have a like or comment.
If you want to read a comment click on the highlighted thread topic.
This saves having to refresh anything unless you wish.

P.S. You can also right click on the arrowed topic and "open a new tab" so as not to interfere with anything else you are doing.

View attachment 645812
And that is exactly what I discover as faulty for the last couple of days. Clicking that way or via my account and own posts do not bring me directly to the post I want to read, but a random place same page on the thread. But as a non-payee member and no addblocking on one device discovering this as faulty and other device with addblocking and no problems, my suspicion is a change in layout for commercial adverts.
 
Last edited:
Moderator
Premium
Forums broken, New corporate overlords must be active..
Just tested it and seems to be working fine for me, what I did notice a few times recently was that the notification didn't close once I'd read it.
Anyway can we please get back on topic
 
OverTake
Premium
Forums broken, New corporate overlords must be active..
You know it's me working on this forum for the last sixteen years and still am and nothing has changed as far as I know. Will investigate but you can leave those silly remarks out please.

Also for site bugs please use this forum to report it or let let us know via email (as Eckhart did, thanks :inlove:). Stuff that gets reported in random comments on articles or forum posts might be completely overlooked (unintentionally).

As said above by Kenny, back to topic.
 
Hype and marketing is pretty much their identity, lol
It seems our society, even our species, exists solely to support marketing. Every form of mass communication, save one, in the past two hundred years has immediately become merely another venue for marketing; and I am astounded that we can still make a non-emergency phone call without first having to listen to a thirty second promo for something.
 
Why call it "GTR Revival" and not focus it on... you know... GT racing?

If you're going to ride on the coat tails of a successful franchise, at least make it somewhat similar to said franchise. If you're going to have completely different content give it a completely different name.

I hate marketers.
Logical, but probably just a working title.

Captain Kangaroo was neither a captain nor a kangaroo.
 
I want 90s DTM and JGTC. Although both championships remained impressive for many decades, i think the 90s was their peak both in terms of performance and variety.
DTM kinda lost it's interest when they switched to the typical GT racecars because apparently it's cheaper to run another Porsche or Audi R8 than develop a monster based on a production sedan or coupe. JGTC is still VERY interesting though. The brand new Z joined and it's sweet.
I believe botch championships have almost ZERO representation in the simgaming world. And i'm talking about proper simulation not Gran Turismo or Forza or whatever.
 
Last edited:
I'd like to see the BTCC SuperTourers era, or Gen1 (Aussie) Supercars.

Meanwhile seeing as who the game designer is I'm fully expecting this to be the most precise racing simulator ever, seeing as he was telling us for years how every other racing Sim was doing it wrong....pressures on.
 
Premium
I think overall it doesn't really matter which series is the one to kick it off, if what has been claimed by Ian Bell is true or there abouts then the modding community and DLC will do the rest of the work.
I would hope though that some things that are normally set in stone are given some freedom of adjustments for modders and players alike to use, for instance pit stop procedure, it seems that many circuits set minimum time pit in to pit out, and others set minimum stationary time with no pitlane refuelling for 'recreation/revival' races, however refuelling could be done at any time in the pit in the 'good old' dangerous days, so that,
The jack man, trolley jack, sack barrow, and in-car air jack, variable wheel hammer, wheel-spider, air gun, overalls or shirtsleeves, these in my mind would be a variable set in stone feature.
Others like flags and safety car procedure could be variable to allow for content/mods from different eras.
The pit board. drive by pit wall board (if you miss it you miss it), in car HUD board (GTR2), radio... radio on/off option too.
I'd like there to be some recognition of different race length AI crash recovery/retirement procedures too, I do get peeved when there's a car in the gravel at the 'old hairpin' all race long... pull it off to the side, or, in longer races drag it to the pits for a few laps and get it back in the race.
Grids are things that set the decades apart too, I'd like to see variables from the staggered two by two, back in the good ol' days (groan, not again) there were 3,2,3 grids, and I even remember 4,3,4 on what would now be considered tight tracks, and of course lets allow for the good old run across the track Le Mans start.
I believe that it's things like this that could set the GTR-R sim head and shoulders above the competition, studios are getting too used to doing as little as they can get away with and it's time that changed.
So, things to consider really should be discussed in a recorded pub environment, where a brainstorming and whinging session can be used to figure out what could be missing, meetings around an office table rarely gets to the crux of things... beer get's it said.
 
Grids are things that set the decades apart too, I'd like to see variables from the staggered two by two, back in the good ol' days (groan, not again) there were 3,2,3 grids, and I even remember 4,3,4 on what would now be considered tight tracks, and of course lets allow for the good old run across the track Le Mans start.
Simply can't wait to run across my living room, my VR glasses attached, jump in my flexible NLR seat, grope for the start button while I try to suppress the pain from my sprained big toe delivering extra immersion of burnt toes in old-fashioned racing cars with the typical cooling issues.
 

Latest News

Article information

Author
Angus Martin
Article read time
4 min read
Views
22,880
Comments
172
Last update

How often do you meet up (IRL) with your simracing friends?

  • Weekly

    Votes: 61 9.3%
  • Monthly

    Votes: 33 5.1%
  • Yearly

    Votes: 40 6.1%
  • Weekly at lan events

    Votes: 3 0.5%
  • Monthly at lan events

    Votes: 2 0.3%
  • Yearly at lan events

    Votes: 15 2.3%
  • Never have

    Votes: 511 78.3%
Back
Top