Review – iRacing Arcade People into the competitive racing game scene are probably well aware of iRacing. It’s a subscription based racing simulator that makes Assetto Corsa feel like Mario Kart by comparison. Its focus is on pure, unadulterated realism, to the point that major racing organizations such as NASCAR have used iRacing as the basis for their competitive esports series. As you’d expect, this isn’t exactly the kind of experience you can easily translate into a console game aimed at a less hardcore audience. iRacing Studios‘ solution was to create a more colorful, newcomer friendly take on its hardcore racing formula, aptly named iRacing Arcade. It’s certainly more approachable at first glance, with its colorful visuals and chibi characters, but that raises the obvious question: is this actually an arcade racer? More importantly, does it manage to hit the sweet spot between simulation and accessibility? I don’t know why, but racing game developers are struggling with understanding the concept of an “arcade racer” nowadays. To me, an arcade racer is the kind of “easy to pick up” racing game where you can just select a course, a car, and just jump into a race in less than a minute. No need to worry about a career, finances, menus, just pure driving, usually without the most realistic of controls and physics. iRacing Arcade… isn’t that. Whilst far from being as realistic and prohibitive towards newcomers as its big brother, it sits on a bizarre limbo, not knowing if it wants to be a kid-friendly racer with goofy visuals, or a racing sim. A less realistic racing sim, but a racing sim regardless. It’s easy to grasp its controls and physics, that’s for certain. But iRacing Arcade focuses more on a simplistic career mode that is the core of its somewhat