Yesterday, the eagerly anticipated Assetto Corsa EVO hit the early access circuit on Steam, offering fans of the franchise a taste of its latest evolution. This new chapter is playable both on traditional screens and via PC VR headsets. However, the initial reactions are a mixed bag. Particularly among VR enthusiasts, there’s a growing chorus advising potential players to hold off until some much-needed patches roll out to tackle its current optimization woes.
Developed by KUNOS Simulazioni, known for their previous successes with Assetto Corsa (2014) and Assetto Corsa Competizione (2018), this new installment was long-awaited by fans. Assetto Corsa EVO, in its early access version, arrives with five tracks, 20 vehicles, and a single-player mode. It also includes support for SteamVR headsets and the option for triple screen setups.
The studio has assured that the full breadth of content—including 100 cars, 25 tracks, an open-world map, and the introduction of career and multiplayer modes—will be available through future updates. But at present, VR players find themselves underwhelmed.
With over 2,700 reviews rolling in, the game currently holds a ‘Mixed’ rating on Steam. While some criticism is directed at the yet-to-be-released features promised by KUNOS Simulazioni, the bulk of feedback, especially from those using VR, highlights significant optimization issues. Many are finding the game virtually unplayable in VR, citing poor performance.
One Steam user, Poloman, is direct in their feedback, noting, “I won’t comment on the performance issues, as this is early access, only remark is that VR is currently unplayable. I have 150 fps on 3440×1440, but can’t get more than 30 FPS in VR.”
Another user, Mattios, shares their experience: “Unplayable in VR with a RTX 4090 and i9 13900k at lowest settings (only targeting 80hz too). It has constant latency spikes making the game unplayable at any setting. Flatscreen works fine, maxed out it barely hits 80% GPU and 10% CPU usage without upscaling.”
Dan, another disappointed player, writes, “Can’t recommend it in its current state, performance optimization is just not there, at least for VR. [I have a Radeon] 7600X + 7900 XT getting 50 fps running on a Quest 3 with Link and OpenXR, and that’s with a single car on track in practice, on the minimum graphics settings. And that’s already disregarding visual glitches, that happened mostly on the menu for me. Besides that, the default FFB settings are not at all what I expected from Kunos. All in all, wait for the coming patches to even consider it.”
Historically, KUNOS Simulazioni’s Assetto Corsa games have often launched in an early access format, gradually rolling out full features, so the current situation is not entirely unexpected. VR has been a crucial component of this series despite not always being available from day one. The original Assetto Corsa was an early adopter of VR, adding initial support for Rift headsets in 2013 and gradually expanding to other headsets by 2017.
The developers have committed to a full release “within less than one year from the start of Early Access.” There’s hope that in this time, the performance kinks will be ironed out, especially in VR, which aims to justify the $32 price tag.
