Supercars Championship in video games

There have been numerous video games which have included the drivers, teams, cars and circuits from the Supercars Championship, the leading touring car category in Australia. Several of these games were officially licensed by Supercars. From 2011 to 2014, an online championship sanctioned by Supercars was contested on iRacing.^[1]

History

Early computer games

Touring Car Champions, released by Torus Games and Virtual Sports Interactive for Windows in June 1997,^[2] was the first game to be based on Australian touring car racing. It featured real-life video from the Mount Panorama Circuit with the virtual cars superimposed over the top. The game was endorsed by the Holden Racing Team,^[3] and its drivers from the 1995 Bathurst 1000—Peter Brock, Tomas Mezera, Craig Lowndes and Greg Murphy—were featured in the game, along with cut scenes from the race. The game included a Holden Commodore-based and a Ford Falcon-based car, with the Holden Racing Team's 1996 livery being used on one of the Commodore-based cars. Players took part in a series of races around the Mount Panorama Circuit, with prize money being used to upgrade the car or change the team manager and pit crew.^[4]

This was followed by Dick Johnson V8 Challenge, released for Windows in December 1999.^[2] It featured 25 drivers of what was then known as V8 Supercars as well as four tracks: Oran Park Raceway, Sandown Raceway, Queensland Raceway and Mount Panorama. The physics model of the game was created with input from Dick and Steven Johnson. The game featured multiple camera angles with which to race and supported the use of a force-feedback racing wheel.^[5]

TOCA

The third instalment of Codemasters' TOCA Touring Car series, TOCA World Touring Cars, released in 2000, was available for the PlayStation. It featured cars loosely based on the Ford AU Falcon and Holden VT Commodore that were used in V8 Supercars at the time.

In 2002, TOCA Race Driver, the fourth game in Codemasters' series, was released in Australia as V8 Supercars: Race Driver for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It was the first game to feature the name V8 Supercars in its title and was the first in a series of three games that would be released with such branding. The game featured 21 cars and seven tracks from the 2001 Shell Championship Series.

This was followed by V8 Supercars 2 in 2004, which featured content from the 2003 season and was also released for Windows. The final game in the series was V8 Supercars 3, which was released in 2006 and featured all cars and tracks from the 2005 season. It included the greatest depth of V8 Supercars content of all of the games released.^[6]

Gran Turismo

In 2001, a Ford AU Falcon campaigned by Ford Tickford Racing in the 2000 Shell Championship Series appeared in Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, the first time an Australian car had been included in the series. The car has since appeared in each game of the Gran Turismo series up to and including Gran Turismo 6.

Forza Motorsport

DJR Team Penske carried Xbox and Forza Motorsport signage at selected events in 2014 and 2015.

The V8 Supercars license has featured in the Forza Motorsport series. The 2015 edition, Forza Motorsport 6, featured ten V8 Supercars including all five marques that competed in the 2015 season.^[7] The series, a flagship series of Microsoft's Xbox series of consoles, has also featured as a sponsor on multiple real life V8 Supercars, including a wildcard entry from Triple Eight Race Engineering at the 2013 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 and on DJR Team Penske cars in 2014 and 2015.

In 2016, 2 cars from the newly renamed Supercars Championship and 1 car from the 2015 V8 Supercars Championship appeared in Forza Horizon 3, their first appearance in the spin-off series to Forza Motorsport, as part of a wider focus on Australian content.^[8] The two 2016 season cars came in the Forza Horizon 3 Motorsport All-Stars DLC. The other 2015 season car was attainable in game via a Forzathon Event.

Other

The 2002 game V8 Challenge was released by EA Sports. EA Sports also sponsored the Holden Young Lions entry through the 2001 and 2002 seasons.

In 2017, Supercars Australia announced plans to launch an eSports competition, with the software to be used yet to be confirmed.^[9]

Licensed games

Fully licensed games have accurate cars (including liveries), drivers and or tracks from the V8 Supercars series. Several of these games only feature a limited selection of V8 Supercars rather than the entire field of cars and tracks.

Other appearances

Various games have also included a more limited selection of cars from the V8 Supercars series, without having a full series license. This does not include several games which have received fan-made modifications to add V8 Supercars content, including rFactor, NASCAR Racing 2003 Season and GTR 2. Other games, such as Project CARS and Gran Turismo 6, have featured the V8 Supercars' most famous circuit, Mount Panorama, without featuring full series content.^[10]

See also

• Racing video games

References