Modern racing games are either entirely open-world experiences or sim racers with realistic controls. Both genres have their dedicated fanbases, and these days there’s a lot of overlap too, leading to something we like to call “sim-cade.” Games belonging to all of these genres have advanced in a lot of ways: better graphics, better controls, and more cars.
With that said, a lot of games today still struggle to capture that raw sense of speed. People often say that older racing games were better at this, and they’re not entirely wrong when talking particularly about sim racers. But modern games like Dirty Rally and Need for Speed Heat still do well in this regard. So what exactly is the problem?
The Technical Challenge
Real-world speed is often a wild mix of physical sensations. You have G-forces slamming you back into the seat, vibration in the chassis, the engine roar, and a peripheral blur as the world whips by. Racing games obviously have to fake all of that by just using your screen, speakers, or, in the best situation, a VR headset.
This is fundamentally a tall order. We’re talking about distinct audio cues like refined exhaust notes and tire squeals, and visible tricks like motion blur, particle effects, and camera shakes. There’s also the hardware limit, as optimizing a game to have an incredible sense of speed while maintaining visual fidelity without aliasing or pop-in is difficult. Especially when we’re dealing with high-resolution textures. It takes a very talented team to accomplish all this.
Take field of view (FOV), for example. If you go too wide, the world will feel small and narrow. Go too narrow, and it starts feeling claustrophobic. The overall scale of a game also comes into play. Highways in Forza Horizon 5 feel epic at 200mph because distant objects shrink fast. On the flip side, tight circuits in Gran Turismo 7 compress that illusion.
The Modern Sim Problem
As modern sims like Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Motorsport chase photorealism and realistic controls, they end up feeling slower than their predecessors. As someone who has played both Gran Turismo 4 (PS2, 2004) and Gran Turismo 7 (PS5/PS4, 2022), I can confidently say that racing is faster in the older title.
That’s mainly because GT4 had exaggerated blur and lighter cars, elevating that sense of speed. GT7 has “realer” tire models, and the weight simulation makes the same speeds feel more grounded. That visceral rush in the older games came from looser physics, letting cars slide. It was an illusion, and it wasn’t realistic, so you could also argue that GT7 is better in that regard.
Modern racing sims want to prioritize accuracy over everything. The fun isn’t in just racing anymore; it’s about the grind, getting better, and for a lot of people, competing. That junky thrill of going fast is fun, but sim racing devs realize that it doesn’t maintain a core audience long term. Maybe they’re wrong about it, but with reportedly over 16 million copies sold for Gran Turismo 7, it’s hard to argue against them.
Striking The Balance
In my opinion, Need for Speed Heat has a great sense of speed because of camera shake, the flattening of the HUD, and the fact that nitrous actually feels impactful. Older games like Need for Speed: Most Wanted did this even better, but I don’t want bias to shine through here (It’s my favorite racing game). Burnout Paradise also nailed this concept, thanks to clever camera manipulation and the fact that the game wanted you to crash.
I recently reviewed Ride 6, which also does well in this regard, mainly because the controls feel harder and the stakes for crashing are higher. I bring up all these examples because they strike the balance: they exaggerate the illusion without sacrificing playability or realism. Motion blur isn’t just a fancy filter, camera shake, and particle effects tunnel your view on straights, and the engine noise takes it to another level.
But if you go too far in any of those aspects, it starts to become too chaotic to enjoy for longer periods. You almost have to pick and choose your battles these days. Then there’s also the fact that we don’t have as many great arcade racing games as we once did these days.
As a result, the slowness of modern sim racers feels even more exaggerated to us who grew up with something like Blur. Yeah, remember Blur?
