Nascar heat series

NASCAR Heat 5, the official video game of the world’s most popular stockcar racing series, puts you behind the wheel of these incredible racing machines and challenges you to become the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion.


Features all the official teams, drivers and cars from the three NASCAR National Series as well as the Xtreme Dirt Tour, racing on 39 authentic tracks. The immersive Career is complemented by Quick Race, a new Test Session mode and multiplayer, both online and split screen.

•Introducing Test Session Mode – practice without AI, adjust your setup, and refine your race craft
•Deeper career mode statistics – track your performance more accurately, such as average finish, average start
•Race online for the ultimate challenge against up to 39 other drivers
•Take part in the eNASCAR Heat Pro League for the chance to drive for one of the official NASCAR teams!
•Full car set up options allow you to refine the car to suit the circuit and your racing style

NASCAR Heat Evolution will race its way to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 for the first time ever on September 13, 2016. Featuring over 40 drivers, all 23 licensed NASCAR Sprint Cup Series tracks, and a variety of gameplay modes, NASCAR Heat Evolution is the first authentic NASCAR game for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

New Gameplay Engine: Rebuilt from the ground up, NASCAR Heat Evolution brings back the fun and excitement of NASCAR you know and love.

New AI: Whether you’re a rookie or a trained racing veteran, the dynamic AI system adjusts to your skill level.

New Tracks: Daytona has risen, Colossus is fired up at Bristol, and your other favorite tracks are ready for the 2016 season.

New Damage: With the all-new damage model, Darlington Stripes have never looked better, if you earn ’em.

New Drivers: Matt DiBenedetto, Landon Cassill, Chris Buescher, and other drivers make their NASCAR video game debut.

New Online: The online gameplay system has been rebuilt to ensure fun, competitive, and fast racing Game Modes: A variety of gameplay modes will give you more to do than ever before. Gameplay modes include Race, Challenges, Season, Chase, Online, and Career. In Career, customize your own NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver like never before!

Tracks: From the high banks of Talladega to the tight turns in Martinsville, each of the 23 licensed NASCAR tracks have been carefully recreated in conjunction with track owners.

Drivers: NASCAR Heat Evolution offers 43 different drivers from the most popular race teams including Stewart-Haas Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske, Chip Ganassi, and many more

Autoblog may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.

This week in racing game news:

The next NASCAR game won't be part of the Heat series

The "NASCAR Heat" series has been consistently solid over the past few years of releases. We've streamed several of the games ourselves during our weekly Twitch stream, and enjoyed every second. It seems, though, that the Heat series has run its course as George Holmquist, representative for NASCAR games developer Motorsport Games has confirmed to IGN that the next NASCAR game won't be a Heat game at all, instead debuting with the title "NASCAR 21." The upcoming game promises improved graphics and, perhaps more importantly for many gamers, improved game physics. Here's hoping the new game can live up to the greatness of the Heat series.

An official IndyCar game is coming in 2023

Speaking of Motorsport Games, it recently announced that it's working on a new IndyCar game to be released (hopefully) in 2023. Not a whole lot is known about the upcoming game yet, but when it releases, it'll be the first new IndyCar-focused game in nearly 20 years, following the release of "IndyCar Series 2005" for the original Xbox. It's been awhile. 

The latest "GTA Online" update introduces car meets

Starting July 20, you'll be able to take your favorite "GTA" car to a virtual meet-up thanks to the new Los Santos Tuners update. In addition to adding the LS meet, the update includes multiple tuner-based missions and plenty of chances to make some easy in-game money racing. Check out the announcement video below to learn more.

Ford revealed a real-life version of its "Rocket League" F-150 at the Chicago Auto Show

Video game creator Motosport Games is set to change the title for the NASCAR Heat Series from 2021. The famous video game franchise will see a new name from the next edition, as per CEO Dmitry Kozko. The development is part of restructuring plans for the game.

The developers are planning to build the game’s software from scratch, as per Kozko. The company’s chief also said that they are in talks with the IndyCar Series to build a new game. No further details have been released so far. It will be interesting to see what the new software upgrades have in store for NASCAR and gaming fans. The gaming series has been very popular among fans.

NASCAR Heat 5 – the last game of the Heat Series

Last month, the latest installment in the series – NASCAR Heat 5 – was launched. The Heat 5 includes all the three racing championships there are in NASCAR – the Cup Series, the Xfinity Series, and the Truck Series. Chase Elliott is the one the cover of the Heat 5 game.

The game also includes a career mode that allows drivers the opportunity to progress through the various championships and finally arrive at the Cup Series. Additionally, players have the option in the career mode to drive as independent drivers and sign with teams. Otherwise, they can also build their own team and recruit staff and other drivers. It also has 34 authorized race tracks along with ESports support. The game also has a new track-testing mode that lets players get familiar with a new course before racing on it. The game also comes with a Gold edition that features NASCAR legend Tony Stewart on the cover.

History of the Heat Series

The first installment of the Heat Series was the NASCAR Heat Evolution, followed by the Heat 2, Heat 3, Heat 4, and finally the NASCAR Heat 5. An installment of the game has launched every year since 2016.

The Heat 5 game will also be used this week for the eNASCAR Heat Pro League Championship race. The event will feature 28 drivers – 14 each from Xbox and PlayStation 4 platforms.

A few months ago, during the absence of live-action due to the coronavirus, the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series helped fans the much-needed taste of NASCAR during the lockdown.

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Aayush Majumdar is a NASCAR content strategist, a Tennis Writer, and a sports analyst at EssentiallySports. He is well-tenured as a tennis and NASCAR writer, with over 900 articles across both sports. After pursuing a Post Graduate program in Sports Management, Aayush explored various roles in Sports Media, including a Sports Reporting role at a leading English daily.

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Wikimedia list article

NASCAR, the most popular motorsport in the United States, has worked with video game developers to design several video games. In 2003, EA Sports received an exclusive console license to produce NASCAR games, eliminating Papyrus and Hasbro Interactive as competitors. In May 2009, iRacing.com received a license to run NASCAR-sanctioned online racing starting in 2010. In June 2009 at the E3 Gaming Expo, NASCAR was revealed to be a part of the Gran Turismo series for the first time in Gran Turismo 5 for the PlayStation 3.

Developers[edit]

Papyrus Design Group[edit]

Main article: NASCAR Racing

In 1994, Papyrus Design Group, an up-and-coming simulation racing developer (at the time) that was best known for the IndyCar Racing series, released the first installation to the NASCAR Racing series into the video game market.^[1]

Over the next decade Papyrus teamed with Sierra Entertainment and continued producing games for their NASCAR Racing series. The NASCAR Racing games were universally praised for their accuracy in terms of physics and track feel, with NASCAR Cup and Xfinity (formerly Nationwide) Series drivers regularly practicing for upcoming tracks using the games. Prior to sweeping both races at Pocono in 2006, Denny Hamlin had only seen the track in NASCAR Racing 2003 Season.

Electronic Arts[edit]

Main article: EA Sports NASCAR

Electronic Arts, through their EA Sports banner, developed NASCAR games for the Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo 64 under names such as NASCAR 98, NASCAR 99, NASCAR 2000 and NASCAR Road Racing. Also, a big hit for the company was NASCAR Rumble, a spin-off of the normal NASCAR racing games. The company expanded into NASCAR games for PC, Game Boy Color for their 2000 game, and the PlayStation 2 for their 2001 game, the last under the old name. For 2002, the series was renamed NASCAR Thunder, and by 2003, has simultaneously been released on GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC, and the PlayStation.

EA Sports decided to split their old "Thunder" titles into two separate racing lines; one for consoles focused on gameplay, and one for PC, which attempted to focus on technical accuracy in the spirit of the old Papyrus/Sierra lines – indeed the PC game used many former members of the Papyrus development teams (although David Kaemmer was not involved). The games were given differing names, as to not confuse the two, with the console series renamed NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup (released in 2004, a reference to the new NASCAR playoff format) and the PC series renamed NASCAR SimRacing (released in 2005). Sweeping gameplay changes meant that the "Chase for the Cup" name was dropped from the 2006 edition of the console game. Instead, the game was titled NASCAR 06: Total Team Control. The new name is derived from the new feature by which a player who has teammates in the field can actually switch to their teammates' cars and control them during a race. It was released on August 30, 2005. Released on September 6, 2006, NASCAR 07 was EA Sports' tenth game in the series. NASCAR 09 was the final game in the EA Sports NASCAR series. It is available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well as PlayStation 2. The NASCAR series took a different approach in 2009, as EA introduced NASCAR Kart Racing on the Wii console. It was later announced that EA would not make a NASCAR 10, and the series is currently on hiatus because of a drop in sales and now has lost the license they had with NASCAR since 2003.

2010–present[edit]

Starting in 2010, EA's license to make NASCAR games expired. Gran Turismo 5 features NASCAR in the game with cars from 2010 season and some tracks on the NASCAR schedule; 2011 season cars were added later in an update. Also, iRacing.com and NASCAR started an Online Racing Series which started in 2010 and the NASCAR Peak Antifreeze Series later that year. iRacing and NASCAR had a close partnership and by the start of the 2014 season, the simulation had every car make/model that has run in Sprint Cup from 2013 and 2014 seasons and every track that the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series on the simulation. Other games that came out with NASCAR licensing after 2010 included Days of Thunder: Arcade (based on Days of Thunder), which is a game sold as an Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network game for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Eutechnyx[edit]

Main article: NASCAR The Game

In 2010, Eutechnyx began creating games based on NASCAR starting in 2011 with NASCAR The Game: 2011.^[1]NASCAR The Game: Inside Line was released on November 6, 2012. Afterwards, Eutechnyx made two new games: the first NASCAR licensed video game for iOS, and NASCAR The Game: 2013 for Steam. Eutechnyx switched publishers for NASCAR '14 to Deep Silver after having Activision publishing previous games of the NASCAR The Game series. DMi Games replaced Eutechnyx for NASCAR '15 on January 1, 2015.

Dusenberry Martin Racing / 704Games[edit]

Dusenberry Martin Racing took over the NASCAR license and began developing new games in 2016, as well as releasing a Eutechnyx-developed update game for the 2015 season. DMR is an American-based company located in the NASCAR Plaza building in Uptown, Charlotte, North Carolina. The company is headed by former Hasbro Interactive CEO Tom Dusenberry (developers of the NASCAR Heat series) and Ed Martin, former executive at Papyrus, Hasbro, Atari, EA Sports, and most recent licensee Eutechnyx.^[2][3][4][5] DMR partnered with NASCAR Heat developer Monster Games to create NASCAR Heat Evolution.^[6]

In 2017, DMR rebranded to 704Games and hired former NASCAR Media Group President, NASCAR Senior Vice President and DMR chairman Paul Brooks as CEO.^[7]

Other[edit]

Other NASCAR games include Hasbro Interactive's NASCAR Heat; Papyrus' NASCAR Legends, which took players back to the 1970 season, featuring a different point system, and many different tracks. There is also a pinball game: 3-D Ultra NASCAR Pinball. This game was based on the NASCAR Racing 3 engine; EA Sports' NASCAR Revolution (released between NASCAR 99, which came out in 1998, and NASCAR 2000, which came out in 1999); and NASCAR Rumble, an EA game incorporating some of the features of Nintendo's Mario Kart series, but with NASCAR car designs. Gran Turismo 5 featured NASCAR as one of several new licenses that was included in the game.^[8]

List[edit]

Simulation/realism[edit]

Arcade/casual/other[edit]

Games with NASCAR as a non-core element[edit]

This list includes games which have a NASCAR license but are not based specifically around it (such as racing simulators with other series/disciplines of racing worked into them, or which have mods which add NASCAR cars and/or tracks).

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Video game series

Video game series

NASCAR Heat is a series of NASCAR video games developed and produced by Monster Games and 704Games, who has held the license to publish NASCAR video games since 2015. The first game in the series to be published in the series was NASCAR Heat Evolution, and the latest game to be released in the series was NASCAR Heat 5.

History[edit]

In May 2016, Monster Games announced the first NASCAR video game to be released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The working title was NASCAR Heat Evolution, and Dusenberry Martin Racing was named a co-developer.^[1] DMR had previously acquired a NASCAR license in January 2015.^[2] Released in September, the game received lackluster reviews for not including enough features.^[3] A sequel, NASCAR Heat 2, was released on September 12, 2017, and included the Xfinity Series and Camping World Truck Series in addition to the Cup Series, which NHE exclusively featured.^[4]NASCAR Heat 3 was released on September 7, 2018, and featured the fictional Xtreme Dirt Tour.^[5] On September 14, 2019, NASCAR Heat 4 was released.^[6]

For NASCAR Heat 5, 704Games replaced Monster as developer and brought on Motorsport Games as publisher.^[7] The game was released in early July, a departure from the traditional September date; as an effect, the developers focused on smaller improvements.^[8]

In July 2021, Motorsport Games confirmed that they would be discontinuing the NASCAR Heat branding, it will be using the rFactor 2 physics engine and the Unreal graphics engine for the upcoming official NASCAR game.^[9] The game's name was later unveiled as NASCAR 21: Ignition, and is set to be released in October 26 and 28.

A standalone mobile game, NASCAR Heat Mobile, was released on April 25, 2017.^[10]

Gameplay[edit]

Heat has been criticized throughout its run for having little and low-quality presentation.^[11][12] The games feature playable challenges that unlock driver tutorials,^[4] and a single-player test mode was added for Heat 5.^[13]

Physics[edit]

Heat games feature a controller vibration when drafting.^[3] They also dynamic artificial intelligence.^[1] The game features a default automatic transmission, criticized for not carrying enough momentum.^[11] The game has been described as a mix of arcade and simulation.^[14][15][16] Between Heat 3 and Heat 4, the developers redid physics at a number of tracks,^[17] and also revamped the game's artificial intelligence.^[18]

Multiplayer[edit]

The series started with a bare-bones multiplayer option.^[3] Beginning with Heat 3, the eNASCAR Heat Pro League was sanctioned on the console,^[19] although NH3's online package was still criticized by reviewers.^[20]

Career[edit]

Heat games allow players to create a custom character in Career mode.^[3]Heat Evolution was criticized for having little to no plotline in Career mode,^[11] but did allow users to improve their car through a series of upgrades.^[4]Heat 2 introduced a new "Hot Seat" feature where players started in a part-time season before progressing to full-time.^[4] In Heat 3, players could own their own team in any series.^[14]

References[edit]