The best racing games on PC
The best racing games on PC feature everything from classics like Need for Speed and Burnout Paradise to more modern games like Forza Horizon 5 and The Crew Motorfest. The racing genre has a rich history in PC gaming, which means the options of games to play are pretty endless. To make your search for the next best game slightly easier, we’ve pulled together all the best racing games you can play right now to save you from wading through the masses.
We’ve selected various racing games worth playing, including sims like Project CARS 2, or more offbeat, underrated choices like Driver: San Francisco. Generally, we play it pretty loosely with the definition of ‘racing game’ to ensure we’ve got games that appeal to all players—anything with wheels counts. But, even with our blurred guidelines, these games all have one thing in common: they all offer a fantastic driving experience in one way or another.
If you’re looking to take your driving simulation experience to the next level it’s worth checking out our guide to the best steering wheels for PC.
2024: This year we’ve added a ton of new racing game choices to the list from the newest F1 and MotoGP games to the sillier Hot Wheels and What The Car? for when you need a pit stop.
Newest racing games
Some of our favorite racing games on this list aren’t necessarily the newest. In a genre where things get newer and shinier each year though, here are our quick tips on the newest releases on this list so you can figure out which series are worth upgrading this year.
- What The Car? (September 9, 2024)
- F1 24 (May 31, 2024)
- MotoGP 24 (May 2, 2024)
- Le Mans Ultimate (February 20, 2024)
- Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 (October 19, 2023)
Best racing games
Assetto Corsa Competizione
(Image credit: Kunos Simulazioni, 505 Games)
Release date: 2019 | Developer: Kunos Simulazioni | Steam
Succinctly: the alpha and omega of sim racing on PC. Developer Kunos Simulazioni’s forensic eye for detail and nigh-supernatural knack for translating laser-scanning race circuits into uncannily accurate virtual counterparts has turned us all into endurance racing fans since ACC dropped in 2018. The gorgeous day/night cycles and the force feedback implementation were stellar then, and remain so years on.
Since launch, its roster of cars, racing categories and tracks has expanded vastly, from Portimao the Portuguese roller coaster to the definitive version of the Nurburgring Nordschleife (although the latter like many tracks is only available as paid DLC). The UI could be better and public server browsing leaves much to be desired, so it’s preferable to join a community like LFM and race through their online leagues. The sensation of the car, though, that’s where ACC stretches a lead over the competition. No one else gets vehicle weight transfer this right. No other game lets you know exactly how close your tires are to snapping past their grip limit.
And since we now live in a world in which transcendent MotoGP icon Valentino Rossi is a GT driver, yes – his car’s in the game. You can be Rossi on four wheels now, or beat him.
Project CARS 2
Release date: 2017 | Developer: Slightly Mad Studios | Steam
Since its release in 2017, other games have surpassed Slightly Mad Studios’ racing sim for visual glossiness. Newer titles have found a more convincing handling model, and offer a wider range of vehicles and cars. But where none of these whippersnappers can beat PC2 is in sheer sandbox appeal.
It sounds like a minor detail, but the level of detail its race creator goes into is peerless. How fast do you want the day-night cycle to operate? X60 speed? Roger that. What about weather slots, from sunny to all-out blizzard? How about tire wear, fuel burn, damage level and mechanical failures? Mandatory pit-stops?
It’s that granular server control, as much as its excellent handling and vast swathe of vehicles and tracks, which holds the attention of a persistent community in PC2, long after dev support ended. In fact you can no longer even buy it new on Steam. If you don’t own it already, it’s worth finding a way to play.
Read more: Project CARS 2 review
Le Mans Ultimate
(Image credit: Studio 397)
Release date: 2024 (early access) | Developer: Studio 397 | Steam
Studio 397’s prior work on rFactor 2 gives you some clue as to why they’d pitch this official World Endurance Championship game towards the sim end of the arcade-sim spectrum. But the glossy visuals and immersive cockpit cam, that’s new territory that only a modern, from-scratch release can provide.
The official license imbues it with a track list far broader than the iconic Circuit de Sarthe, but the clue’s in the title: the big draw here is in how well this game captures the magic of the Le Mans 24-hour. All the LMP and GTE machinery is present and correct in its 2023 season livery, the day-night transitions are pretty magical, and the level of race management feels like just the stern demand you’d want from such a famously gruelling endurance event. And yes, you can actually set the race length to 24 hours and take it on in real time with a co-op buddy, thanks to post-launch updates.
iRacing
Release date: 2008 | Developer: iRacing Motorsport Simulations | iRacing
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. Not because the gamepad support is poor; it 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 2008, it’s consistently stayed astride with the latest simulators each year. Quite an achievement.
Read more: iRacing review
The Crew Motorfest
(Image credit: Ubisoft Ivory Tower)
Release date: 2023 | Developer: Ivory Tower | Epic
The Crew Motorfest brings better vehicle handling and more detailed graphics than previous The Crew games, which helps to put it above the rest. Although we argued in our review that there is a decent amount of Forza Horizon mimicry throughout the game, that doesn’t stop it from offering a lively racing experience that’s worth picking up. Sure, its overly-enthusiastic voice cast may seem a bit intense when you start, but before long you’ll be using their encouragement to perform at your very best.
As we stated in our review, the game is at its best when it “dares to do something that Horizon doesn’t” through its use of playlists that transform the landscape in response to the theme of your current challenge. These offer a variety of beautiful environments to help keep your time on the track exciting, while also putting your driving to the test since you don’t know what may lurk around each twist and turn.
Read more: The Crew Motorsport review
Forza Horizon 5
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
Release date: 2021 | Developer: Playground Games | Steam, Microsoft Store
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 500 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.”
Read more: Forza Horizon 5 looks like a truly ‘next-gen’ game
BeamNG.drive
(Image credit: BeamNG)
Release date: 2015 | Developer: BeamNG | Steam
Let’s be honest with ourselves: in the virtual realm where whiplash and insurance premiums aren’t a thing, crashes are one of the racing genre’s great treats. The twisted metal, the sound, the incredibly satisfying pinwheeling after an impact—it’s what games are here for. Unfortunately due to the vagaries of licence agreements with automotive manufacturers, most games can’t go all-out on their damage models. BeamNG.drive isn’t most games.
Less of a traditional racing game and more of a vehicular sandbox, it’s the perfect venue to host experiments like ‘Which car can make it down this insane slalom of obstacles I’ve built in one piece?’ and ‘How well does a family hatchback navigate a speedbump at 100mph?’
There’s a more traditional flavour of PvP racing on offer too, and thanks to a talented modding community’s multi-decade efforts, you can make BeamNG.drive look like a serious sim racer or a Saturday morning kids’ TV show at your behest.
Need For Speed Unbound
(Image credit: Criterion Games, Electronic Arts)
Release date: 2022 | Developer: Criterion Games | Steam
For the longest time it was the be-all and end-all of arcade racing. Then came Need For Speed’s wilderness years, before a return to form in 2018’s Heat, and live service success via 2022’s Unbound.
Not every swing at modern tuner culture lands a killer blow—I’m still undecided about the plumes of graffiti that billow out from your rear wheel arches—but the vehicle list is brilliantly customisable, with more widebody kits than suburban parking lot at 11pm and a great risk-reward system around police chases that incentivises you to go out and raise your wanted level as much as you can without being caught for bigger payouts.
Post-launch support has been strong since 2022, with plenty of cars and even a new Hot Pursuit mode having been added, which puts a fresh spin on the classic car chase that the series was built on.
Read more: Need For Speed Unbound review
MotoGP 24
(Image credit: Milestone)
Release date: 2024 | Developer: Milestone | Steam
Reckon you’re hard, do you? Got a squeaky clean safety rating in ACC and made it to the end credits of multiple FromSoft games? That’s nothing. Try completing a lap—try completing a single corner—of MotoGP 24 with all the assists off.
Milestone’s officially licensed bike sim is next-level challenging. Individual front and rear brakes, both of which need to be modulated ever-so gently as though you’re holding an egg with each trigger finger. Super-detailed tire and bike behaviour simulation. And aero-laden, 227 mph monsters that want to flip you to the moon if you dare to get on the throttle a fraction early.
The feeling when you start to master that unique handling, though, is why MotoGP 24 sits proudly on this list. Sure, you can use the AI-informed assists to onboard you, but the best experience is feeling the full force of a MotoGP bike and learning to tame it. After a few laps, you’ll be begging for a nice relaxing online ACC race in the rain with worn tires and cold brakes.
F1 24
(Image credit: Codemasters)
Release date: 2024 | Developer: Codemasters | Steam
Codemasters’ long-running F1 series has its foibles, but nobody’s built a better career mode in this space than the RPG-like life-stealer that lives at F1 24’s core. Now offering the choice to play as a real driver from the F1 or F2 grids or legends of yore as well as the usual create-a-driver, driver career is bolstered by a rivalry system and long-term goals that see you trying to secure your place in the pantheon next to Schumacher, Hamilton et al.
F1 World, introduced one game previously, still doesn’t feel vital to the overall package, but that’s only because the career’s so engrossing, and online racing is so competitive. It’s also testament to the handling model, somewhere in the sim-cade sweet spot, that some of the most fun you can have with these many-finned monstrosities is simply hot lapping and shooting for a higher leaderboard time.
Read more: F1 24 review
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged
(Image credit: Milestone)
Release date: 2023 | Developer: Milestone | Steam
What happened to games like this? There used to be colourful arcade racers everywhere you looked in PC gaming. On every demo disc that came your way, under the sofa, in your school bag… and then apparently the games industry held a secret meeting to ban them, until Milestone bravely stepped up and put loop-de-loops and speed boosts back on the menu.
The 2021 original was uncomplicated fun, but it had a few gaps that the 2023 sequel capably fills. A surprisingly longform career mode is the main draw on paper, but in reality it’s the collection of impossibly cute Hot Wheels vehicles that proves the lasting motivation to keep coming back to its Micro Machines-like courses and refining your powerslide technique.
EA Sports WRC
(Image credit: Codemasters, Electronic Arts)
Release date: 2023 | Developer: Codemasters | Steam
Don’t worry, Dirt Rally 2 fans, you can swap Codemasters’ older loose surface racer in for the licensed WRC game if you’re still having too much fun in it to make the jump. Truth be told, the appeal’s the same across both games: fantastic feel, formidable challenge, and a pupil-dilating sense of speed.
This being the official game of the 2023 WRC, though, you’ve got the full roster of rally cars across all categories to complement rally stages from every country the championship visits. And it’s here, on the courses, that the jump over to Unreal Engine really proves its worth. Too often in rally games, you feel like you’re navigating along a corridor of trees in the name of frame rate-saving draw distances, but EA WRC really opens things up, sending you along mountaintop trails, undulating riverbed crossings and spectacularly pretty alpine switchbacks.
Post-launch support has been fantastic, with new events and scenarios added every week.
Forza Motorsport
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Release date: 2023 | Developer: Turn 10 Studios |Steam
Forza Motorsport is a step up for Turn 10’s storied series. Even if the series isn’t as absurdly varied and full of personality as the Horizon spin-offs, Motorsport is one of the best pure racing games around. Vehicles here have a newfound weight which feeds into a more detailed experience since you’ll have to consider things such as traction and wear on your tires depending on where you are. Everything just feels more precise than it did in Forza Motorsport 7.
As we stated in our review of Forza Motorsport, the handling is absolutely wonderful, which is where this game excels. Driving feels fast and fluid both on and offline, and you feel immersed in the landscapes you’re speeding through, which marks a fantastic racing game. Races feel tense and exhilarating, and you feel in complete control of your vehicle at all points which helps drive you (no pun intended) to beat your own records.
Read more: Forza Motorsport review
TrackMania 2
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Release date: 2020 | Developer: UbisoftNadeo | Steam, Ubisoft Store
Almost a decade after the release of Trackmania 2, Ubisoft Nadeo debuted its semi-reboot of series with Trackmania 2020. The new game features some significant graphical upgrades, but the real treat is the addition of daily featured tracks, new track pieces like ice, and improved checkpointing. Most importantly, it’s a fresh start for Trackmania detached from Nadeo’s strange Maniaplanet platform.
But don’t worry, Trackmania is still incredibly weird. I’ve already played tons of nonsensical tracks that require pinpoint timing, endless repetition, and a little bit of luck. Nadeo is also taking a more hands-on approach to post-release content by releasing new tracks made by the studio on a seasonal basis. If you’re a lapsed fan or new to the series, this is where you want to be.
Read more: Players demolish Trackmania’s ‘impossible’ skip and fly over the finish line in reverse
My Summer Car
Release date: 2016 | Developer: Amistech Games | Steam
At least half your time in My Summer Car is spent outside of a car. In fact, it’s as much a car mechanic game and a simulator of being a teenage layabout in 1990s rural Finland as a racing game per se. It makes its way on this list, however, because for anyone with a passing interest in cars it’s an essential experience.
It all begins with a note from your parents telling you to rebuild the junked car in your garage. From there you construct a driveable, moddable vehicle down to the most minute nuts and bolts, teaching you exactly what an exhaust manifold looks like and what happens when it rattles loose along a lakeside single lane road at 70mph. Car ownership has never felt more satisfying and personal in driving games than in this slightly janky but beautifully esoteric builder-meets-racer.
What The Car?
(Image credit: Triband)
Release date: 2024 | Developer: Triband | Steam
A car game with an utter, giddy disregard for cars. The very first thing that happens in Triband’s irreverent take on racing is that your car sprouts legs, and that’s a very important clue that this isn’t going to be troubling iRacing in the realism stakes.
Over the coming hours, you’re going to be guiding a ‘car’ on giant legs through woodland chicanes, deploying a jetpack to launch it between islands, and rolling it around in car-ball form to score a goal, whereupon a pack of bears celebrates like somehow you’ve all just won the World Cup together. A mix of racing, platformer and improv comedy, and the perfect counterpart to a hard evening in the bucket seat trying to find an extra hundredth on your lap time in ACC.
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Release date: 2018 | Developer: Criterion Games | Steam
Racing games aren’t often treated to remasters. The big franchises iterate so often that there rarely seems much point, but in the case of Burnout Paradise everybody was happy to see an exception to the rule. In 10 years, there’s been nothing quite like it.
And yet the original model still surpasses its imitators. It’s so much purer and more exciting than the games it inspired. It doesn’t have any licensed cars, so instead it features car-archetypes that crumple into gut-wrenchingly violent wrecks. Compare those to the fender-benders that wipe you out in Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Criterion’s attempt at topping themselves and where you get the sense that just depicting a shattered headlight would have entailed hundreds of meetings with Lamborghini’s lawyers.
Paradise isn’t an online “social” experience. It’s not all about collectibles and unlocks. You get new cars, but they’re not the point of the game. It’s about driving around a city populated entirely by cars, listening to a drivetime DJ spin classic and pop rock tracks while you drive hell-for-leather through twisting city streets, mountain passes, and idyllic farmland. It’s violent, blindingly fast, and endlessly entertaining. It’s created the modern arcade racing genre, but the joke is on us, because all we’ve done ever since is try to get back to Paradise.
Read more: Why I love the freedom of Burnout Paradise
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