Recent racing games pc

Horizon 5 doesn't introduce much that's new beyond the excellent co-op mode, Horizon Tour but refines everything that the previous game did, and has a much better campaign structure for sorting through the ridiculous amount of stuff to do. The visuals are absolutely spectacular, too.

Want to read more? See our full Forza Horizon 5 review and buy it now from Amazon. Given that the series would soon return to its familiar slump, it's easy to forget that, for a brief period with Criterion at the reins, the Need for Speed games served up some of the best driving experiences around. Hot Pursuit's crunchy combat and wide-open roads drilled into everything that makes Need for Speed great, and this remaster only reinforces the impression that this was a high watermark for the series.

We await Criterion's fresh stint at the helm with baited breath. Before Criterion took over Need for Speed, it created the legendary arcade racing series Burnout, which took the elegant boosting and drifting of 90s classics like Ridge Racer and Daytona and reframed them for the 00s as a grimy contact sport - all screen shake, sideswipes and twisted metal. It's not surprising that such a daringly modern game should age so well, as it has in this lovely remaster.

Now remaster Burnouts 2 and 3 as well please! See our full Burnout Paradise Remastered review and buy it now from Amazon.

You can gather a few friends and play any Mario Kart game, right back to the Super Nintendo original, and be guaranteed a good time.

Every game in the series boasts refined arcade handling, tricksy courses, a lovable cast of characters and a capricious cruel streak that can turn any race on its head. No wonder these are the best-selling racing games ever. The latest, Mario Kart 8 - the Deluxe version of which features in our list of the best Switch games - might be the best Mario Kart since the very first, with superb local and online multiplayer, a rewarding solo game, deep customisation, luscious visuals and a banging live-band soundtrack.

See our full Mario Kart 8 Deluxe review and buy it now from Amazon. Crash Team Racing is what happens when a bandwagon-jumping, off-brand cover version of a supposedly inimitable hit - Mario Kart, of course - is made by one of the most talented studios in the world, Naughty Dog. It doesn't deviate far from the source material at all, but it gets everything exactly right, and the end result is hugely entertaining.

All the same things can be said of this faultless, better-than-you-remember-it remake by Beenox. If you're not playing on Switch, or if you just love Crash, Nitro-Fueled can't be beat for local multiplayer fun. Some modern arcade racers can be a little too betrothed to their iconic predecessors, and while, yes, Inertial Drift does take several leaves out of Ridge Racer Type 4's book, it emerges as entirely its own thing.

Thank the unique twin-stick drift mechanic for that, one that takes the slightest acclimatisation - but once you've got your head and your fingers around it, there's nothing quite like it. See our full Inertial Drift review. There are plenty of retro racers around that play like cover versions of past classics, but Art of Rally is something a bit more subtle and original than that. It pays tribute to the golden age of rallying with its toylike, unlicensed car designs, and to a lost era of racing games like Micro Machines with its unusual top-down camera.

It's definitely an aesthetic, and a very stylish one at that. But what makes the game so fun is the surprisingly deep handling model that makes it a better recreation of the sport than you have any right to expect.

Originally launched on PC, but now available on Xbox and Switch. See our full Art of Rally review. This wonderful banger-racer - which, just like Art of Rally, boasts many iconic and completely unlicensed cars shhh, don't tell the manufacturers - channels the classic Destruction Derby, as well as the fondly remembered Flatout.

That's not surprising, as it's by the original Flatout studio Bugbear. It's a simple formula, but has everything that you need: old cars with weighty, wallowing handling that lurch and smash and lunch each other's bodywork convincingly thanks to a brilliant physics engine.

Simple pleasures. See our full Wreckfest review and buy it now from Amazon. TrackMania is one of those odd little corners of gaming that is almost its own genre: a brutally fast and difficult stunt-driving time-trial game with hugely exaggerated physics that allow for impossible feats of what you can only call airborne car ballet.

The PC games have a fantastic, dedicated community, but are bewilderingly fussy in their structure and business models, and last year's reboot, simply called TrackMania, is no different. So allow us to direct you instead to this fantastic primer in all things Trackmania, made for consoles but also available on PC. It's far more accessible while sacrificing none of the series' legendary, just-one-more-restart, obsessive edge.

See our full TrackMania Turbo review and buy it now from Amazon. This lush package is currently the best way to play the iconic, futuristic PlayStation racing series - the original ultra-fast anti-grav racer, and still the best, even if the PS3 and Vita entries remastered here HD, Fury and are not quite of the blistering calibre of the original PlayStation games from the mids.

They are still gloriously slick, fast and beautiful, retaining the clean and cool sci-fi aesthetic that has always set the series apart from its brasher competitors.

See our full Wipeout Omega Collection review and buy it now from Amazon. We usually favour recent releases over retro classics in our best-of lists, but a handful of oldies play as fresh now as they ever did, and that goes for this blast of summer breeze from Make a statement with customizable outfits and bike skins.

DiRT Rally 2. You will need to rely on your instincts with the most immersive and truly focused off-road experience yet, including a new authentic handling model, tyre choice and surface deformation. Power your rally car through real-life off-road environments in New Zealand, Argentina, Spain, Poland, Australia and the USA, with only your co-driver and instincts to guide you.

Race on eight official circuits from the FIA World Rallycross championship, complete with licensed Supercars and support series. Develop your team and cars around race strategies, and progress through a varied selection of Events and Championships in both a single player Career Campaign and a competitive online environment.

Live the life of a pro, put yourself to the test in the Compound, tackle challenges, manage your events and attract new sponsors to earn fame and unlock new content. Assume the role of a young hoverbike racer who needs to figure out how to scrape enough cash together through racing and odd jobs to punch your one-way ticket to the Red Planet to enter the biggest race in the universe, the Grand Prix.

Experience what the creators promise to be the most complete racing ever with RIDE 3. Race on different tracks all over the world, put your favourite vehicles' speed to the test and have fun by customising them with the new Livery Editor.

Combine furious speed with intense action to create memorable racing moments. For the first time in the racing and driving genre, experience dynamic seasons in a shared open-world. Explore beautiful scenery, collect over cars, and become a Horizon Superstar in historic Britain.

Dakar 18 is a simulation of the world-famous annual rally raid organized by Amaury Sport Organisation A. Distance is an atmospheric racing platformer. Fusing futuristic arcade racing with parkour, survive a deadly, mysterious, neon-drenched city by jumping, rotating, and flying. The newest iteration in the franchise, The Crew 2 captures the thrill of the American motorsports spirit in an open world.

Welcome to Motornation, a huge, varied, action-packed playground built for motorsports throughout the entire US of A. Enjoy unrestrained exploration on ground, sea, and sky. From coast to coast, street and pro racers, off-road explorers, and freestylers gather and compete in all kinds of disciplines.

Join them in high-octane contests and share every glorious moment with the world. The Crew 2 gives you the chance to showcase your skills and rise as a multi-skilled motorsports champion. Wreckfest is a demolition derby themed racing game with soft-body damage modeling, sophisticated driving dynamics and in-depth vehicle upgrading, featuring both demolition derbies and more traditional track races. Antigraviator is a sleek new take on the anti-gravity racing genre.

Use traps, power-ups and boosts to overtake your opponents and dominate the track in single player or multiplayer mode. With no speed limit holding you back, Antigraviator delivers the fastest racing experience of the future. Thrilling arcade racing game, inspired by the super-fun-straight-to-the-point classic racing games from the 90s. Paint the track with dynamic racing lines, boost on your team's colour and blaze your way to victory!

For bikers, there are two types of speed races: the Isle of Man TT and the rest. No race is more difficult. Take up the challenge of the legendary Snaefell Mountain course: all Destroy obstacles, take shortcuts, and forget any rules until the end to win.

Welcome to Sprint Vector championship intergalactica, where the physical thrill of extreme sports meets the unhinged energy of a crazy game show. Run, jump, climb, fling, and fly at extreme velocity as you race up to eight players and battle obstacles in this frenetic VR adrenaline platformer that puts your speed and finesse to the test.

They take on a variety of challenges and events as Tyler, the Racer; Mac, the Showman; and Jess, the Wheelman to earn the respect of the underground. Featuring the deepest customization from the series, players can truly craft a personalized and unique ride, or spend hours finding and tuning an abandoned derelict into a supercar.

They can then push their cars to the limit and raise the stakes by betting on their own performance, where they can either multiply their winnings or risk losing it all. Experience the thrill of motorsport at the limit. Enjoy graphics at 60fps and native 4K resolution in HDR. Collect and race more than cars, including the largest collection of Ferraris, Porsches, and Lamborghinis ever.

Challenge yourself across 30 famous destinations and ribbons, where race conditions change every time you return to the track.

Project CARS 2 is the next evolution in the award-winning racing series, featuring the most iconic cars racing under the most thrilling conditions to deliver the Ultimate Driver Journey.

Project CARS 2 captures the essence of real racing in the most beautiful, intense, authentic, and technically-advanced racing game on the planet. Play as the best drivers in the Championship and experience the competition through its 13 official events.

Win the World Championship, break every record in the fastest ever F1 cars, and race some of the most iconic F1 cars of the last 30 years. Crashday, the explosive cult classic multiplayer racer, is back! Retooled and remastered, Crashday: Redline Edition brings back the fun and memories of the original with this lovingly crafted tribute edition, featuring all-new and expanded features, including Steam Workshop support.

Today is Crashday! Dirt 4 puts you at the wheel of the most powerful machines ever made as you face the toughest roads and circuits on the planet in rally, rallycross, and landrush. Formula Fusion is an anti-gravity combat racing game set in the year Work your way through the SinglePlayer Campaign, unlocking craft, tracks and your inner rage. Develop your racing and combat skills to climb the Leaderboards. Race against the world on-line in the 10 player Multiplayer W.

Danger Zone is a vehicular destruction game from seasoned genre veterans Three Fields Entertainment. Step into the shoes of a dangerous driver and cause the biggest car crashes ever seen in a video game.

Danger Zone combines real physical crashes with explosive gameplay. Snow Moto Racing Freedom lets you take your rightful place on a high-speed snowmobile on Snocross tracks or through vast beautiful winter landscapes. Experience the thrill of racing so close to your opponents that you can feel the spray of the snow and hear the roar of their engines. Flatout 4: Total Insanity elevates the level of hard hitting, fast paced action in the demolition derby style racing genre.

The game offers bigger, louder, better and more outrageous stunts and collisions. Also, fans of the genre can still enjoy some of the popular classic stunts too, as FlatOut 4: Total Insanity offers something for FlatOut fans both new and familiar. In a world dominated by freestyling and risk-taking, impose your riding style throughout the world. Intimidate your opponents and win your races! Moto Racer 4 is a single and multi-player racing game for up to 10 players offering an Asphalt and Off Road mode.

Welcome to the temple of motorcycles, the only digital garage that will allow you to discover, transform and test the worlds fastest, most iconic and original vehicles. The top of the range of the most famous brands will await you to compete against each other in a unique videogame and show the world their full potential!

Over bikes are the undisputed protagonists of the new chapter of this long-waited two-wheel racing game. Feel the adrenaline rush through your veins and face the most dreadful bends with the passion and the boldness of a professional rider!

Ride 2 include the tracks of the wildest and most exciting races of all time! Country, City, GP, Road, Motard and Drag race: challenge the toughest types of roads and leave a slipstream at every squeal of tyres! Make your Horizon the ultimate celebration of cars, music, and freedom of the open road. How you get there is up to you. Drive through the vast desert and rocky canyons of the Outback to lush, wild rainforests, and to the sandy beaches and gleaming skyscrapers of Australia's Gold Coast.

It is designed to be an uncompromising, fast, tough and satisfying driving experience, soaked in that vertigo that stands at the core of the arcade racing genre.

Includes the full season calendar of 21 tracks, including the brand new Baku circuit in Azerbaijan, and the full roster of 22 drivers and 11 teams, including the new Haas F1 Team. F1 immerses you in not only the on-track excitement of a FORMULA ONE career, including the inclusion of the iconic Safety Car and also the Virtual Safety Car for the first time, but also uniquely offers the drama and vehicle development that goes on behind the scenes.

Work with your agent, engineer and team to develop your car in the deepest ever career experience, spanning up to ten seasons. Forge your own path to glory, and rise to be the champion. Mantis Burn Racing is an arcade style top-down racer with stunning visuals, a comprehensive single-player career mode, and a deep, RPG-style upgrade system.

A videogame entirely dedicated to the career of Valentino Rossi, the 9 time World Champion. Experience the career of Valentino from his perspective in a series of 20 challenges from his first race in up to During the championship, Valentino will ask you to take part in different events like drifting, flat, R1M-only races, and rally in order to improve his abilities.

Trackmania offers and arcade racing universe in which everything is about reaching the perfect racing time. Test your skills in over two hundred tracks, challenge your friends at home offline splitscreen or online. Whether you are changing the ride height by slamming it to the ground, raising it up, or anything in between, you choose your perfect ride height. Suspension tuning is finished up with your camber. The PC version has new features, including unlocked framerate with 4K resolution, manual transmission, and steering wheel support for a selection of steering wheels.

Same-screen party racing for up to 16 players. Race brutal-cute aliens on exotic planets, using weapon powerups and physics-based vehicles to annihilate your competition in frantic round-based combat.

Connect spare gamepads, laptops and smart devices as extra controllers. Sebastien Loeb Rally Evo is an off-road racing game experience that teams players with the greatest racer in Rally history: Se?

DiRT Rally captures the essence of what makes rally unique — that sense of trying to remain in control of your emotions, as you hurtle along at breakneck speed, aiming to squeeze everything out of your car whilst knowing that one crash could irreparably harm your stage time.

Show your skill and tactics in the fight for the title of World Champion in all events and stadiums of the Grand Prix season. The Crew Wild Run takes players to what's known as The Summit, a massive gathering of drivers and racing enthusiasts facing off in a series of extreme events in well-known American locations.

Players put their skills to the test competing to find out who would become king of the road. Players are free to choose dragsters designed to reach ridiculous top speeds, drift cars that demonstrate inverted control angles, unstoppable monster trucks that can perform backflips and jumps, or a wide range of agile motorcycles from respected brands geared to take on the fastest cars on and off the road.

Experience all the sensations of rally racing in WRC 5. Absolute Drift is a racing game about becoming a master at the art of drifting.

Spectra is a twitch racing game. Blast your nimble ship down intricate ribbons of light in time to the dynamic beats and original soundtrack by chiptune artist legend Chipzel.

Honda returns and once more forges an alliance with McLaren, which also welcomes back Fernando Alonso. Sebastien Vettel moves to Ferrari and, alongside a new generation of exciting young drivers on the grid, will attempt to halt the winning start Mercedes have made in the new era of FORMULA 1.

The race calendar for also features a new circuit, with a return to Mexico for the first time in over 20 years. Soccer meets driving once again in this physics-based multiplayer-focused sequel to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. Choose a variety of high-flying vehicles equipped with huge rocket boosters to score aerial goals and pull-off game-changing saves. The Next Penelope is an original 2D racing and action game, set in a futuristic Greece.

As Penelope is looking for Ulysses through the galaxy, the player is free to explore the worlds in any order. Each planet features unique situations, races, bosses, and new permanent abilities to get for the spaceship.

All weapons cost vital energy when used, so the player is very powerful and close to death at the same time. Create a driver, pick from a variety of motorsports, and shift into high gear to chase a number of Historic Goals and ultimate recognition in the Hall Of Fame.

Then test your skills online either in competitive fully-loaded race weekends, leaderboard-based time challenges, or continually-updated community events. Select from over bikes from the manufacturers that have made motorcycling history, and set off on the World Tour. Challenge rivals at Motorcycle Festivals divided into three different track typologies: from the thrills of the GP Tracks, through the beautiful landscapes of the Country Tracks, and all the way to the challenge of the City Tracks.

Race after race, customize and improve your bike in order to work your way up the World Rankings and become the fastest biker in RIDE. As well as the World Tour, players can compete in a variety of different game modes: Quick Race, Time Trial, Split Screen, and online with up to twelve players in the Quick Race and in the Championship.

Assetto Corsa is designed to provide a very realistic driving experience, with single player and multiplayer options, officially licensed cars and tracks developed using Laser scan technology, and the highest level of accuracy possible in reproducing real world motor racing environments.

Also, Assetto Corsa allows for considerable customisation and modification, in order to satisfy the expectations of professional simracers, gamers who prefer to approach the driving experience more progressively, and hobbyists who just like to collect lots of cars and tracks.

Engage in a relentless ride to infiltrate and subvert the s, a gang that has come to power around Detroit's illegal street racing scene. Your mission?

Build up your reputation in the secret racing scene and sabotage their activities city-by-city all across an open world United States. Each location comes with its own set of surprises and driving challenges to master. On your journey you will encounter other people on the road - all potentially worthy companions to crew up with, or future rivals to compete against.

Which choices are the best racing games on PC? Racing games have a deep and storied history on the platform, dating back to the '80s, possibly even earlier. Classic's from Midtown Madness to Need For Speed are out there to discover, but what about the best racing games on PC you can play today?

We tackle that question in our list, whether you're a veteran gearhead, or looking for a smooth Sunday drive. Listed you'll find hardcore sims like the challenging Dirt Rally, but also offbeat choices like the criminally underrated Driver: San Francisco—a satisfying driving game with a weird body-hopping system.

We play fast and loose with the definition of 'racing game' here. If it's got wheels, it's fair game. But you'll find these games have one thing in common: they will offer a great driving experience, and they'll feel great when you're behind the wheel. If you want to take your driving simulation experience to the next level, check out our handy list of the best steering wheels for PC. With Phil's review of Forza Horizon 5 , he zooms in on the level of refinement that's taken place in the Forza series.

No sweeping changes have been made in the newest entry in the series, but a meticulous level of craftsmanship is on display. The Playground team has spent countless hours polishing the hoods of cars until they gleam, and the same is true of the environments in the new setting: Mexico.

The seasonal playlist is present and prominent from the beginning, forming the heart of the gameplay. You'll find yourself taking on unexpected challenges, and utilizing your entire stable of cars in pursuit of new rare additions, as Phil put it: "We've had plenty of looter shooters, but Forza Horizon is slowly turning into the first looter racer.

The first Dirt Rally was a revelation when it arrived in , departing from the snapback caps and energy drink ads that erstwhile came to define the Dirt series and renewing its focus on the staggering challenge of - well, just keeping a car on the track of a rally course. In our review of Forza Motorsport 7 , James calls it "so vast and all-encompassing that not only can I turn it into a stupid game about vans, I can also make it a game about conquering my van obsession and finally learning how to drive cool sports cars.

The addition of dynamic weather effects transforms the typical race from a technical route memorization test to an impromptu puddle-dodging marathon in low visibility. Night tracks slowly transition to dawn, sunlight filling out pitch black darkness while Forza looks and plays better than ever. It's weighed down by an awful progression system too dependent on a hackneyed loot box system, but as the first mainline Forza on PC, Motorsport 7 is malleable enough to absorb the shock of a few speed bumps.

This is the racing sim that attempts to do it all: ice racing on studded tires around Swedish snowdrifts. Karting in the Scottish highlands. Loose surface racing feels just as convincing as hitting the track in a road-legal car, and the fidelity it conveys to your hands as you try to bully a car into the apex with its force feedback support is best-in-class stuff.

Several racing drivers across numerous disciplines acted as consultants during development, and it really does show. A strong eSports scene is now solidified around Project CARS 2, and such is the depth of simulation that for young aspiring drivers, this might well be a fitting substitute for time on track.

With its regular online racing leagues and meticulous car and track modelling, iRacing is as close to real racing as you can get on the PC. That also means iRacing is something you need to work up to.

It has no meaningful single-player component and, with its subscription fees and live tournament scheduling, it requires significant investment. Oh, and a force feedback wheel is quite literally required here - that's not us saying the gamepad support is poor. The game just won't let you race unless you have a wheel. But for a certain class of sim racing fan, there is nothing that compares. The very best iRacing players often compete in real motorsport too, and make a career out of eSports sim racing.

And having first released now over a decade ago in , it's consistently stayed astride with the latest simulators each year.