After initially showing so much promise, it’s been a bumpy road for Assetto Corsa EVO’s Early Access programme. In particular, the recent announcement that the original career mode plan will be scrapped has received backlash from the community.
We sat down with Marco Massarutto, Co-Founder and Executive Manager at Kunos Simulazioni, to discuss why these changes happened and what the future holds for Assetto Corsa EVO.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Please explain the original vision for Assetto Corsa EVO’s career mode and the main reasons why you decided to change that and remove that from the plan.
Marco Massarutto: To answer the question, let me tell you about the Assetto Corsa overall vision before.
Assetto Corsa isn’t just about feeding your passion for car culture.
It’s a tool to challenge yourself. To discover your limits. To understand how you handle and improve driving precision, pressure, competition and the clock.
It’s about reaching a point where the day you step into a real pit lane, wear gloves and a helmet, and sit in a racing seat – whatever the car is – you know that 90–95% of what you can do there comes from what you learned and practiced at home in Assetto Corsa. I experienced it myself, and I saw the very same with other people many times.
That’s what made Assetto Corsa what it is and what it was meant to be, and one of the reasons it became so popular.
There are other reasons: total freedom, a wide variety of cars and tracks built with accuracy and insane details, and of course the modding. That’s a creative force that expanded the platform far beyond what we could have done alone.
With Assetto Corsa Competizione, things were of course different. It was built around a specific championship, so it naturally had boundaries. Unreal Engine wasn’t ideal for modding, which is one of the reasons why, for EVO, we decided to build a brand-new proprietary engine, again – but more powerful than Assetto Corsa 1.
EVO is the direct successor of the original Assetto Corsa. Our idea for the career mode was ambitious: an ecosystem where progression, full freedom, top-level simulation, free roam and modding could all live together.
But as development moved forward, we realised that building such a massive and interconnected structure at the scale we imagined was starting to take focus and resources away from what matters most: the core pillars of Assetto Corsa.
For the majority of the over 20 million users who love the Assetto vision, those pillars are non-negotiable. We still want to build the best career mode for Assetto Corsa Evo, but we realised that the one based on economy, backend and grinding no longer matched the team’s internal vision.
As mentioned last week, the current Career Mode and in-game economy we envisioned before would have forced too many compromises.
More limits on modding. A much longer development time.Possible restrictions on multiplayer, servers and free roam. And that’s not the direction we want.
That said, I don’t exclude that a different Career Mode in the future could be implemented. At some point, we had to make a choice, to not suffer through the difficult development process and still deliver something that doesn’t meet what people expect from our popular franchise.
So we chose to protect the DNA of Assetto Corsa and to focus on what makes this platform special: uncompromising simulation and openness. Not because it was the easier path — but because we feel it was the right one.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Can you understand the pushback of those who were looking forward to the career mode and potentially purchased EVO with this in mind?
Marco Massarutto: We understand why some players are disappointed about the removal of the career mode. Assetto Corsa is primarily a pure driving simulation, and we have to focus our efforts carefully. Our goal is to deliver the best possible experience within that scope. Some decisions are tough – we recognise that. But they are for the best of the progression of development and for the final result, nothing else.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Will EVO still have a single-player component at this stage? Can you explain the vision for that?
Marco Massarutto: Absolutely. We are working on those game modes that are much more sim-racing oriented and that can give access to all the content without the need to unlock them or be forced to join specific game modes just to be free to do whatever you want.
The free roam will include points of interest, special courses, a navigation system and interactive locations like gas stations, car rentals, car dealerships, hotels, restaurants and other companies that match with the real counterparts as well as AI traffic and other game modes that, this time, we’ll unveil when they will fit 1:1 in the game. So there will absolutely be a single-player mode for both the sim-racing part and free roam.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: It’s been 12 months since Assetto Corsa EVO launched in Early Access and you must have a lot of feedback. How do you listen to the community and decide which items to prioritise?
Marco Massarutto: Over 20 million users worldwide have chosen our titles for their realism, driving feeling, accuracy to cars and tracks, the competition, modding and the level of freedom that they offer. The community has shown to us how much this means to them throughout the life of the Assetto Corsa franchise. Before anything else, it’s important for us to listen to these people.
We listen to the community in a lot of different ways: by reading feedback on Discord and social channels, following discussions between players, looking at direct reports and suggestions, and also by looking at in-game data that shows us how people are actually using the product. So we have several things that we do to find the best match between what people ask and what people do.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Some people are concerned that “no career” means “no free roam”. Can you confirm that the freeroam is still in the works?
Marco Massarutto: Free roam development was previously held back by some game economy systems, but now we’ve got the flexibility we need to properly implement the mechanics required to release the map and let players enjoy the freeroam experience as it was intended.
Just to be clear: freeroam in EVO is not in danger at all. If anything, this change is actually helping us move faster by removing backend and game economy constraints that were slowing its development down.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: A larger component of EVO seems to be the free-roam. Is this now the priority feature and can you update us on the development progress?
Marco Massarutto: Five years ago, we decided to include a free roam map in EVO because we’ve seen the growing interest from the community in open maps created by modders in AC1. It’s something that can truly expand the joy of driving beyond the usual boundaries and gameplay – especially when you’re talking about a proper simulation model on real public roads.
And when someone says, “Yeah, but… you just drive on roads in free roam?”
For us it’s about getting behind the wheel of any car you choose, heading out onto real roads, and experiencing the depth, realism, and immersion for yourself. You soon realise it’s far more than “just” driving – it’s pure, uncompromised automotive freedom. It’s great.
On the development side: yes, part of the team is fully dedicated to free roam. That’s their focus.
But here’s the honest truth: the game economy mechanics were adding a lot of complexity and slowing things down with no gain in terms of entertainment. They were impacting the workflow more than we were comfortable with.
At some point, you have to decide what really matters. What you protect. What you refuse to compromise. Free roam and modding, or game economy? We have a clear answer in mind.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Will the full area be available at once in free-roam? Or will it grow and evolve over time?
Marco Massarutto: We want to release the first section of the map as soon as possible. Now that the game economy structure doesn’t force the development in a tricky direction, we can speed up the process related to interactive locations, logics, etc.
Therefore, we will release the map progressively, improving and updating existing and future content on a regular basis, like we do with any content of the simulation. As much as new activities will land in the Eifel area we are reproducing, we’ll update the map accordingly with it. Just as an example, since we started the development of the freeroam map five years ago. Since we started, some car rentals have opened, others have closed or changed their location. We are working with the aim to keep the area reasonably updated.
This needs some work, but we want to release the first part of the map that eventually will be expanded according with the workflow that we can dedicate to it.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: What can players do within free-roam outside of exploring the environment?
Marco Massarutto: The lack of game economy will not prevent any activity in the freeroam. Simply, you will not be forced to do anything to collect in-game value to have enough money to refuel, to repair your car or rent one but you can do these things if you want.
It will definitely be possible to meet friends online, and the traffic will be fully customizable – we have some ideas about that. So, if you want to get annoyed in a traffic jam, just ask because we are going to customise the experience in a way that you’re not going to miss the backend and in-game economy.
All the activities that we are placing in the area will be visible and you can also interact with many of them like it was decided before.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: So there’s going to be things to interact with like fuel stations, but I just don’t need to earn the cash to fill the car up, for example.
Marco Massarutto: Or if you were running out of cash and you can’t repair the car if you crash it, you are not stuck in the gameplay because of the game economy.
Just to give you another example. In EVO you can’t turn damage off or you can’t have the need not to refuel the car while you are on the track because the game economy was forcing us and the gameplay to have a lot of things that are not sometimes pleasable.
Imagine you are lapping at the Nordschleife just to improve your lap times or because you want to have some fun, and you can’t turn damage off. So the very first crash you had forced you to start the lap again.
We are talking about seven, eight or nine minutes depending on the car. The damage at the moment can’t be turned off because it was connected to the game economy. So all these kinds of things are going to improve because we don’t have these constraints anymore.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Can you talk about upcoming cars and tracks?
Marco Massarutto: I confirm that the 1.0 version will include 100 unique cars in several configurations, the free-roam and no less than 20 officially licensed circuits.
I’m happy to say that when we unveiled EVO, it was supposed to include 15 tracks at launch, but we took advantage of the additional development time, rewarding the community with more content, at no charge.
The Ferrari 296 GT3 is one of the new incoming cars and has been spoiled in the last trailer, so you can get glimpse of what you can expect in 0.6 that, content wise, will be more racing oriented. While we keep some special road/offroad cars for the freeroam release.
About tracks, you spotted Sebring already. We have been asked for so long to not be too “european centric” in the choice of licensed tracks, and 25% of all circuits included in EVO 1.0 are located in the United States.
It required a big effort in the production, licensing and logistics, but we are proud of it. I can’t go deeper into the licensing for other tracks because we are still making some evaluations about the last choices to complete the list.
But I confirm that all the tracks will be real, officially licensed and based on Laserscan Technology.
About the cars: we will have not just 100 cars, but any main category and kind of vehicles. So road cars, stock cars, racing cars, vintage classic, hot hatch, etc.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: What are your plans for multiplayer plans. Are you planning ‘netcode’ stability improvements for car contact in the safety rating? Will you be able to join daily races within the game?
Marco Massarutto: The optimisation process never stops, the early access is meant to be used to apply all those improvements and modifications that make the 1.0 version much stable and better. We are evaluating with SimGrid and other partners how to continue to improve the online ecosystem, how to manage servers and some solutions and directions are still in the works because we want to take the right directions. We want to provide an ecosystem that people will like and use. We’ll provide more details as soon as we can confirm them.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: In the near-term, what is your vision for EVO across the rest of 2026?
Marco Massarutto: Build after build, we are working to improve every aspect of the game: sound, performance, VR, triple screen, handling, force feedback, AI, multiplayer, UI.
Right now, there’s nothing in EVO we consider finished at 100%. We understand there’s still plenty of room for improvement, and the community can see that with each new release.
Some changes are obvious, others are under the hood. But throughout 2025, we’ve focused not only on the game itself, but also on our team organisation and how we manage internal processes to improve the overall workflow and development.
I’m confident that, despite the challenges we’ve faced, in the end we will deliver the best Assetto Corsa so far. I’m confident about what we are doing now, what we can see that people still have to wait to enjoy it. But from what I can see, I’m confident that eventually people will be happy about what we are doing.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Please explain the development team setup, and how it compares to the number of people working on the first Assetto Corsa. Have you had any other changes in the industry such as increased licensing costs?
Marco Massarutto: That’s a topic, indeed. Let me explain it by numbers.
When we started to work on AC1, there were six people. When we delivered the last update in 2017, we were 13.
Now, more than 30, almost 40, people work on EVO today. That means that development costs are not three, but six times higher: seniorities, salary increases, welfare, software licenses, logistics, hardware etc.
About the licensing. The same IPs we had in AC1—car brands and tracks—are now up to five times more expensive than AC1 in just 13 years. To give you some context, until 2017 I was managing licensing deals on my own. Now we have a team of four dedicated to it because it has become quite a complex process.
While Assetto Corsa 1.0 launched with 55 cars and 10 tracks, EVO 1.0 will double this with 100 cars and 20 circuits, plus the free roam. That’s not just a little addition. This means that, today, despite all these costs and the double of content, EVO is even cheaper than AC1.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: What is your opinion on sim racing since Assetto Corsa exited Early Access in 2014?
Marco Massarutto: It totally changed. In 2013, Assetto Corsa filled a gap, resulting in a new benchmark and getting decent visibility even if it was done by six people without any marketing budget.
Negotiating with licensors at the time was quite a challenge because we were a very little and unknown company, but it was still possible. Today we face different challenges, and not just for the costs.
The technological benchmarks today in sim racing are quite high, so the level of complexity needed to fit with these standards is really demanding, not just for Kunos but for the other studios dedicated to sim racing. The huge effort that is required sometimes doesn’t match with level of attention many users can or will dedicate to a single product.
It’s not easy because it requires huge effort. But on the other side, there are so many games, not just sim racing games, but the offering is quite larger than demand. Compared with 13 or 15 years ago, people don’t dedicate the same level of attention they were willing to dedicate 15 years ago. So it’s a time window that is not easy to match.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: With some tricky releases and redundancies, what do you think about the sim racing space in the past six months?
Marco Massarutto: I think the last year has been one of the most challenging I can remember for sim racing. We have seen that the margin for errors is quite thin and we can’t forget that, after all, sim racing is still a niche compared to the majority of racing games.
Don’t forget that today, there are only five active studios all over the world that develop hardcore racing simulations in the last five-ten years.
Witnessing the closing of studios like Turn10, or the announcement of Project Motor Racing staff redundancies less than two weeks after the launch of the game is quite sad.
Electronic Arts put the Need For Speed Series in standby. That of course is not a simulation, but these are very famous racing game studios. For the first time this year, Formula 1 will not receive a new game but a seasonal DLC.
It’s tough. We feel lucky because the reputation of the Assetto Corsa franchise is strong.
Assetto Corsa Rally dropped on the sim racing scene successfully last year. EVO has been performing well and the love we received from the community through all these years is incredible.
This year we celebrate 20 years since the launch of our first simulation netKar PRO and we know that we wouldn’t be still here without the love and support we received from the community.
We are sad and disappointed with ourselves about the review bombing that EVO received with the latest news. We hope that you can understand that any decision we take is not to make you angry, but it’s for the best. Nothing else.
With the support and trust of the community, EVO can be the best Assetto Corsa so far. Without the community, it can’t. I feel that through all this time we earned your trust. That has been demonstrated by supporting each of our products for many years even after the launch.
We ask for your continued support and patience. So, please, if you want to blame someone for your disappointment about the recent news, blame me. I’m the director of the studio. I can face it. I have to. Assetto Corsa Evo, without you, it can’t. I hope people will understand.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Early access can raise different expectations about a product’s level of completion. Why do you use it and how do you see its role in the development process?
Marco Massarutto: Without the early access program, the Assetto Corsa franchise simply would never have existed. Developing a realistic simulation for a niche audience, with licensed, expensive content and high production costs, would have been extremely difficult without this model – potentially preventing its release altogether, or requiring a price point that few would have been willing to accept.
So, in a nutshell, without early access – with all its pros and cons – Assetto Corsa would likely not exist at all. It’s up to each individual to decide how they feel about the early access model. To me, I bless it. No doubt about that.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: How does EVO fit into the current sim racing landscape? When it hits Version 1.0, what will be the main reasons, compared to AC1, ACC and ACR, to play it?
Marco Massarutto: Any aspect of AC1 and ACC has been improved in EVO. The number of content is doubled. Car customisation has insane potential. The free-roam is an experience you can’t miss. We are working with partners in order to provide the community with that online ecosystem they are looking for.
From the casual-daily driver to the hardcore simracer, EVO is a candidate to provide the best experience Assetto Corsa can achieve because it improves any aspects of our previous Assetto Corsa and adds so much more.
For example, modding is going to change in a good way compared to the past.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Assetto Corsa has so many incredible mods freely available online. With modding so prevalent on PC for the first AC, how do you think EVO’s modding can beat that?
Marco Massarutto: The tool for modding included in AC1 was more of an importer, than an editor. The new one is a completely different story because it’s a proper editor. It’s much more powerful and will receive support for the foreseeable future.
Our dream is that, at some point, we’ll also be able to release our terrain editor we use for the free-roam. It can generate a mesh based on LIDAR data and coat it with spawned trees, vegetation and buildings. The possibilities are infinite.
I saw a recent mod for AC1 based on the Transfăgărășan in Romania. It’s a beautiful course. They are doing a great job.
I saw the modders based the modelling on LIDAR data. Imagine a situation where instead of modeling the mesh from an artist’s point of view, you can use the terrain to read the LIDAR data and automatically generate the same mesh.
So instead of using your time as a modder to model everything, you can use the same time to make it richer and better. You can place details, houses and anything you need. Imagine this brought in any part of the world where LIDAR data is available, and you will understand that the modding in EVO is going to bring infinite possibilities for growing. That’s just one reason why EVO is going to be better for modding than AC1,
Not to mention the cars – you can tune and customise the cars into the editor.
We provided some footage that can show some of the functionalities of the editor so that you can see how it’s different from AC1. The idea is to provide all the very same functionalities to the modding community, both for the cars, the tracks, and at some point, because it’s complicated. But it’s something that we want to do.
Also, you will need to spend time studying the terrain system that can generate the mesh, like we did it at Kunos. Don’t be scared. We spent years creating the free roam. But we also because we spent 60% of the time working on the tools that are still being improved because as with any other software, they need to get fixes.
But the idea is that at some point we can share all of this with the community. Because if they did those incredible things with AC1, I can’t imagine what they are going to do with EVO.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Can you explain your vision and the idea for approved modding in EVO?
Marco Massarutto: This is another good side effect that comes from the decisions we have recently taken about the game economy and the career.
Modding has been a question mark for EVO too long. One of the reasons was the struggle at Kunos to create a modding platform that can co-exist with a deep-structured game economy.
We had several discussions to figure out how to create a modding tool that wouldn’t destroy or make the game economy inconsistent.
Eventually, thanks to the recent direction we have taken, we decided that we will provide the community with the tools for free modding. We’ll maybe decide to cooperate closely with the most visual modders because we don’t want to see modded content grabbed from other productions.
There are a lot of very talented modders we would like to cooperate with. But that said, thanks to the decisions we have taken that we published last week, we are going to provide all the community with the modding tools with no limitations.
Thomas Harrison-Lord: Are you and the team still commited passionate about sim racing?
Marco Massarutto: Absolutely. I understand the frustration of the community. We are frustrated as well, because when we raise the bar we want to meet the expectations of our community that has been so good to us.
In the long term, I have no doubts that people will like what we are doing, but I see that. I understand that this is a tricky period, but I’m still passionate.
Fifteen years ago, I had an ugly second-hand bike that I used to ride every given Sunday, no matter the weather or time. It was just to spend my time for free during the weekend.
Today, I’ve got a beautiful bike sitting in the garage collecting dust, because I end up splitting all my spare time in the week between my family and EVO. I can’t remember the last time I had a ride.
But I odn’t feel like it’s a sacrifice because my mind is always there. I always try to figure out the aspects where we can make EVO better, what we can do, what we should do in any single thing.
Like me, and even more than me, there isn’t a single person, I can tell you there isn’t anyone at Kunos Simulazioni who isn’t deeply passionate about what they do. Some for the graphics, some for the handling, some for the list of licensed cars and trucks, some for the free roam. Everyone is absolutely committed.
Surviving in this industry is incredibly challenging, and the news we’ve seen over the past year proves that the line between success and failure is thinner than ever. Without that passion, and considering the pressure we have on our shoulders, and I see that the community saw it, we simply wouldn’t be here today – I truly believe that.
I think this is the best proof of how passionate we are at Kunos. We are absolutely keen to do our best job everyday to give the community the Assetto Corsa they deserve.