A few weeks ago, a tournament was held with prominent racing personalities playing a game called Celeros which featured flying drone-esque vehicles. So what is Celeros?
On 17 August, F1 Esports and ESL R1 commentator George Morgan was casting for the Genesis Tournament. This was an event that featured the likes of GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough and former F1 driver Bruno Senna.
It was held on a game that is currently in the pre-Alpha stage, Celeros which features futuristic flying vehicles.
Official Airspeeder Game
Celeros is being developed by a studio called Saltwater Games. Immediately, something that may be hard to believe about this game, it’s actually not some absurd concept that could never happen in real life like Trackmania or Hot Wheels Unleashed.
Infact, Celeros is the official game of a brand new real world racing championship. Airspeeder is an electric aeronautic car series being described as “Formula 1 of the skies”.
Up until now, the series has run with the vehicles being controlled remotely. It’s set to have its first crew-occupied event next year, with up to 10 teams expected to participate for a full season in 2025.
The current vehicle being used is the Airspeeder Mk4. It has a take-off weight of 950 kilograms and produces 1,340 horsepower from its Thunderstrike Hydrogen Turbogenerator. It can cover a range of 188 miles, but most impressively, gets to its top speed of 225mph from a standstill in 30 seconds.
Airspeeder will compete on tracks mapped out in the sky via augmented reality. Nothing too far removed from a futuristic flight racing game, so it’s no surprise that such a game exists.
Celeros Gameplay
Observing the Genesis Tournament, the game is still very much in its early stages. But the actual gameplay functions look interesting, the physics for the Formula 1/Drone-inspired vehicles seem pretty accurate.
The map used for the event is called Aerobay, a 5.1km city-esque track featuring environment obstacles that players would have to navigate around. There’s also alternate routes, dramatic elevation changes and even winds to propel the players either along or out of line.
Of course, it’s hard to believe the real world championship would race in a built up area. No health and safety expert would approve that. But it can be done in a game without the fear of anyone getting hurt!
The event itself was time based. Each competitor had three laps to get the best time they could. It does leave us wondering if there will be a close quarters racing mode with players being able to actually race against each other. Considering the game is in pre-Alpha, we’ll give them a pass.
But Celeros looks very promising. It could very well appeal to the Trackmania community with its need for precise inputs and momentum to extract the speed.
How To Play
If you are interested in Celeros, join their Discord server and you can engage with the developers. As the game furthers completion, they may open it up to public playtesting. You can also visit Celeros.gg to learn more about the game.
What do you think of Celeros? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
