Free Content, Future Development and Stefano Casillo Interview (Part 2)

[Paul Jeffrey]

We spoke at length with Stefano Casillo of Kunos Simulazioni about Assetto Corsa, some new free content incoming and all things racing...

The Sim Racing Expo was a wonderful opportunity for sim racers, developers, hardware manufacturers and the media to get together to celebrate the wonderful hobby we call sim racing. Thanks to the great access and atmosphere of the event we had the opportunity to chat with one of the key figures behind Assetto Corsa, Stefano Casillo, and he was more than happy to give us an insight into the behind the scenes workings at Kunos, plus revealing some exciting new free content coming to Assetto Corsa in the near future.

You can check out the interview below:

Originally planned as part of a standard paid DLC, Kunos scheduled the highly anticipated laser scanned version of Laguna Seca to release alongside a pack of new performance road cars for the simulation. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances the launch of Laguna hit one or two delays against the original schedule, slipping to much further in the calendar year that was the intention when the announcement was first hinted at several months ago.

In something of a generous gesture from Kunos, the popular Italian developers have decided to release both circuit and accompanying cars to the base game for free, bringing with it a very popular drivers circuit and six new cars to the title.

The confirmed free bonus pack DLC will contain:

• Laguna Seca Circuit
• Alfa Rome Giulia QV
• Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
• Lamborghini Sesto Elemento
• Lamborghini Huracan Performante
• Maserati Quattroporte
• Pagani Huayra BC

No exact release date has been confirmed by Kunos, however it is expected that players will be in receipt of the new content before the end of 2017.

If you missed it earlier, don't forget to check out our previous interview with Stefano where we talk about the new update and Ferrari Celebration DLC.

Assetto Corsa is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC now.

Assetto Corsa and online racing = Love! Check out our brilliant Assetto Corsa League and Club racing forum for great racing events suitable for all skills and experiences. We host regular events using popular content and guarantee a great time for all. Additionally we have a very active sub forum for the game where players can catch up on the latest news and engage with fellow community members here at RD. You can download mods from our modding archive, discuss W.I.P projects in our Modding Discussion Forum and try out a selection of car setups for a wide range of vehicles. Come on, get yourself involved in the action today!

Happy to see more free content coming to Assetto Corsa? Which car most grabs your attention from the list above? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Kamilz2808]

Finally, Giulia.

 

[Patrik Marek]

yeah dear Stefano, there is a reason why is on so many people minds - Rain & Night, because it has been done well in other sims, and it's missing in AC
I'm very happy to see this being a JOKE to you ...

but thanks for free Laguna Seca, that's appreciated

 

[Gergo Panker]

...because it has been done well in other sims, and it's missing in AC

Has it?

 

[Patrik Marek]

Has it?

pCARS1, pCARS2, and new rain in RF2 WIP looks pretty awesome if you ask me

even games like F1 series, Dirt Rallye or WRC7 has decent rain/night

 

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

pCARS1, pCARS2, and new rain in RF2 WIP looks pretty awesome if you ask me

even games like F1 series, Dirt Rallye or WRC7 has decent rain/night

Looking nice doesn't mean it was well done.
The only sim I can think of where it's nicely done is rF2.

 

[Tberg]

yeah dear Stefano, there is a reason why is on so many people minds - Rain & Night, because it has been done well in other sims, and it's missing in AC
I'm very happy to see this being a JOKE to you ...

but thanks for free Laguna Seca, that's appreciated

Please...
There must be a language barrier somewhere, but seing Stefanos words and statements being twisted or misinterpreted is just sad. Stefano, you're bad at explaining things universally correct!! That's a joke!


But, thanks for the hard work, the F70th pack and I look very much forward to the rain&night too in whatever game you do next! Maybe wet pus..game, I don't know!

 

[RasmusP]

yeah dear Stefano, there is a reason why is on so many people minds - Rain & Night, because it has been done well in other sims, and it's missing in AC
I'm very happy to see this being a JOKE to you ...

but thanks for free Laguna Seca, that's appreciated

It's a running gag for them internal and he said the next project will have it. Doesn't seem like it's a joke for him!

There is a difference between joking about something and actually thinking about it as being a joke

 

[Patrik Marek]

Looking nice doesn't mean it was well done.
The only sim I can think of where it's nicely done is rF2.

I could contra argue that well done doesn't only mean physics either , and currently in the version of RF2 I have, it looks pretty poor, so it's not been well done if we want to be picky

 

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

My take on it: It's very easy for users to get angry about lacking features and content, or even the way the existing content is implemented, and also for some devs to lose their cool over those people. But from my POV that just means that they've done such a good job that the expectations on everything they do are very high. I have almost 1300 hours on AC, which is more than all my other racing games combined by far, and don't regret any of it. I just wish we can have Kunos doing what they're doing for a long time, and thank you for your work.

 

[Patrik Marek]

It's a running gag for them internal and he said the next project will have it. Doesn't seem like it's a joke for him!

There is a difference between joking about something and actually thinking about it as being a joke

well the way he was saying it " if we do cat simualtor it will have rain/night" didn't sound like they are serious about including it in their next project,
also joking about people coming to AC , can't drive but already asking about Night & Rain

he was not serious about it, making fun of the entire topics, so yeah, felt like he doesn't care about it .. to me

 

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

I could contra argue that well done doesn't only mean physics either , and currently in the version of RF2 I have, it looks pretty poor, so it's not been well done if we want to be picky

I agree, but there's not much that looks incredible in rF2 IMO. What I like about it's looks is that they're immersive. They don't have the fanciest graphics, but when you play you feel inside a car, and I'd rather have that than good looks any time. Only reason have almost 0 time on rF2 is the difficulty to set it up. If 397 fixes that I'll be glad to be a regular.

 

[RasmusP]

well the way he was saying it " if we do cat simualtor it will have rain/night" didn't sound like they are serious about including it in their next project,
also joking about people coming to AC , can't drive but already asking about Night & Rain

he was not serious about it, making fun of the entire topics, so yeah, felt like he doesn't care about it .. to me

I get your perspective now! I just interpret it differently
In my experience Kunos can be a bit unfriendly here from time to time but we just got another awesome dlc and we get Laguna for free as a thank you to the ac community.
So I think they show us that they are quite nice in the end and definitely care about us

 

[Patrik Marek]

they have been improving it a lot, and once It gets new UI, perhaps lot of the settting it up will be imrpoved at that point as well

 

[Daggerman]

I hope whatever is the new project that its as PC focused as AC was. I would hate to see them drift towards the casual gamer console market.

Virtually every time a title goes "multiplatform", its essentially curtains for the PC version.

 

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

well the way he was saying it " if we do cat simualtor it will have rain/night" didn't sound like they are serious about including it in their next project,
also joking about people coming to AC , can't drive but already asking about Night & Rain

he was not serious about it, making fun of the entire topics, so yeah, felt like he doesn't care about it .. to me

Well, he did say at 2:40 that whathever they do next, it's got to have that. The reason it became a joke is because they made it clear that AC1 isn't gonna have it, and still people bother they every day with it.

 

[Patrik Marek]

I get your perspective now! I just interpret it differently
In my experience Kunos can be a bit unfriendly here from time to time but we just got another awesome dlc and we get Laguna for free as a thank you to the ac community.
So I think they show us that they are quite nice in the end and definitely care about us

well I didn't want to make it sounds like they don't care,
they have done a good job with AC and I agree that the biggest reason for people wanting more is beasue it's so good already

they certainly have a lot of things they can improve, but it would make sense to put all of that into AC2 of course

 

[paracletus]

A commendable addition, great track and cars free of charge.
Big thanks to the AC team. A huge amount of work went into that.

 

[Avo77]

pCARS1, pCARS2, and new rain in RF2 WIP looks pretty awesome if you ask me

even games like F1 series, Dirt Rallye or WRC7 has decent rain/night

just because they increased the level of reflection and added some fake treble?
Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but ‘awesome’...

 

[Nestoche]

I guess I'm an old school single player sim racing gamer. I'm old too!. I don't play multiplayer racing because I am not that skilled and I don't want to ruin anybody's hard fought race by me crashing into them..lol, Reason why I never considered trying IRacing.

But does anyone here want a better career mode similar or better then what Codie's F1 2017 has for Assetto Corsa? I think AC is a great simulator and the cars and the graphics are excellent. I think online multiplayer is probably the meat of the sim as well as the hot lapping for better times. I am also aware of the very generic championship mode AC has to race these awesome machines. But without any semblance of a career mode or a RPG style of a championship mode, to me there is no purpose to racing these nice looking cars since I only do sim racing in single player.

So, my question is....Is AC dev's more focused and catering to mainly online players only? I am not putting it down if it is, it's a nice racing sim and have no issues with it. If that's what the dev's want catering their game too that's their choice. I play the Battlefield FPS series of games and I only play that game for multiplayer, I never buy it for the single player experience. So, am I right to assume that this is the same case with AC?...Just curious.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I don't want to ruin anybody's hard fought race by me crashing into them

It really hurts reading that. Anno 2017 you don't need to hold back anymore on online racing mate. If you are an old school single player you are more skilled than you give yourself credits for and nobody is expects a 100% incident free online race.

Give it a try as you are really missing out on multiplayer racing with this and other racing games.