Original Fire Games and iRacing team up for an arcade racer for all in iRacing Arcade

Original Fire Games occupy a niche space in arcade racing, opting for caricature style in the design of cars and environments. And their partnership with publisher iRacing makes for a joyous time for aspiring drivers. This is a racing game that you make as easy or as hard as you like, and feels great the whole time. Whether you’ve been playing racing games for years or new to them, iRacing Arcade offers something for everybody.

You’ll spend the bulk of your time with the career mode. This is a fully fleshed out mode that not only do you compete in race weekends of varying depth and length, but gives you some really unique freedoms. While a lot of video game racing games will let you build up a driver or a team, manage finances, and juggle a calendar, iRacing Arcade takes things one step further. You are able to build on a plot of land where you can place buildings you purchase like a Team HQ to hire and manage drivers, a garage to customize liveries, and so on. These buildings generate passive bonuses that can be equipped before races like better fuel efficiency, improved drafting capabilities for the first lap, and more health points to take more damage throughout a race. Buildings can also be leveled up when you reach certain team level thresholds and account balances. Then you can tear down old buildings to make room for the new one to take its place. It’s a real fun thing to interact with, and doesn’t take up too much of your time before getting to the good stuff (the racing).

Aside from the career, you can delve into the free play to race with the cars you want on the tracks you like, as much as you want. Additionally, there’s a multiplayer mode for up to 12 players to join lobbies and race around. Unlike the long-running game sans Arcade in its name, there’s no subscription like with iRacing. You buy this game, and you can race with friends and strangers as much as you like.

Several years ago I reviewed Circuit Superstars, and this game’s not too dissimilar from tha one. To be clear, this is not a reskin or a copy & paste of that game, but it does bear resemblances that are hard to shake. Thankfully, the iRacing brand does many things, namely bringing actual manufacturers like Porsche and FIAT as driveable cars to rent or own. Then you can work your way up the ranks to drive faster cars going to Formula 4 to then GTP, and even LMP2 racing classes. The game also has a plethora of real-world tracks like Imola, Tsukuba, Bahrain, Miami, Lime Rock, and Paul Ricard Circuit. A slight on the race tracks is that while they have the track layout accuracy, they lack diversity as all tracks environment design and time of day all tend to look the same.

Competition can be fierce, and there are five difficulties to select from. Throughout the career mode, you’ll be able to select the difficulty for each series, allowing you to tailor your experience part and parcel with your comfort with your skills in certain classes. While in races, you’ll have three areas to pay attention to: car health, gas remaining, and tire wear. When it comes time to pit, you can repair all of these during your stop.

iRacing Arcade is not without its weirdness. For instance, there’s no speedometer or tachometer that’s part of the UI. While this isn’t a game where you need to care about speeds, or have to manually shift gears, this is largely fine without – just an odd omission. There’s also no rear view mirror to show if someone’s creeping up on you due to a couple of bad turns. The game lets you flick the camera to look behind you, but a dedicated mini-screen to just show you would be better.

This is a game where it puts a lot of onus on you to be aware of your surroundings. As of this writing, there’s no voice acting or narration in the way of like a crew chief or just someone in your ear giving you information. This part of the game falls a bit flat. The game doesn’t show you how any of its health, fuel, or tire wear works, nor pit stops. There’s a balance of teaching and knowing that the game doesn’t quite nail. It’s also possible to run out of gas, but the game simply puts a speed limiter on your vehicle until you can cross the finish line.

Cars can have their liveries edited, and you can select from a series of pre-made liveries that are unlocked, and many which require unlocking through play using earned in-game currency. It’s not the most robust livery editor, but more creative types will find some ways to express themselves by editing an owned livery and changing the selected colors to make it your own. The same extends to the drivers, as you can modify the liveries and colorways to make a race suit that suits you.

Graphical options are minimal, but enough to achieve whatever look you’re going for. Interesting, the game doesn’t have a windowed fullscreen mode, only windowed and full screen. iRacing Arcade simply runs great, and achieves maximum framerates across all areas. I did find that the game didn’t like me alt+tabbing out to take notes or otherwise. It’s also a game that works great with the Steam Deck.

iRacing Arcade has a few issues, but what it gets right is racing and worthwhile career mode that’s too fun to put down. The career is the heart of the game, and offers a new level customization and team building not other racing games ever explore. All of the other modes and features bolster what Original Fire Games has done so well, and builds upon that. iRacing Arcade is great for all ages, to be an introduction to racing or a way to unwind after a long day.