NASCAR’s Next Gen car is making its video game return in a new update to Forza Motorsport.
NASCAR previously featured on the last two editions of the Xbox game, with a handful of licensed Gen 6 cars from all three manufacturers being included. This time around, as part of Update 14, all three manufacturer’s cars – the Camaro ZL1, Mustang Dark Horse, and Toyota Camry XSE – are included, albeit unliveried versions, listed under the single ‘NASCAR’ manufacturer in the in-game menu. However, unlike on Motorsport 6 and Motorsport 7, they’re only available as ‘Spotlight’ prize cars during week one of the American Thunder tour event.
Also as part of the update is Homestead-Miami Speedway, another item included in earlier editions of the game, joining Daytona, Indianapolis, and the fictional Eaglerock Speedway and Sunset Peninsula on the game’s oval roster.
Along with the NASCAR features, the game has updated the ‘Drivertar’ AI to improve oval racing, and added rolling starts for multiplayer races.
Car-to-car collisions have also been tweaked to improve accuracy, while lead cars in the draft will have downforce reduced in the draft to make it easier to maintain position, adding to the previous game update which “widen the aero wake near the car, smooth transitions near wake edges and reduce drafting induced aero balance changes”.
NASCAR’s inclusion in Forza Motorsport comes as work on an officially-licensed full NASCAR game is ongoing. iRacing acquired the license in October last year after development of a NASCAR game by Motorsport Games faltered.
The last NASCAR game to be released on consoles was NASCAR 21: Ignition, which added Next Gen cars from the 2022 season as downloadable content post-release.
The NASCAR update comes after drifting – and officially-licensed RTR Ford Mustang drift cars – were added as part of Forza Motorsport’s year one update last month.