Wreckfest 2

Lateralus

Lateralus

More [H]uman than Human
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Wreckfest 2 has been announced, here is an official thread dedicated to the coming sequel.

If, by some chance, there is an arcade racing game fan out there who hasn't heard of Wreckfest...the series is developed by Bugbear Entertainment (creators of the FlatOut series from the mid 2000s) and is probably best described as a spiritual successor to the FlatOut and Destruction Derby games of yore, where "rubbing and racing" and awesome car damage modeling are the heart of the experience. In a time where it seems like most racing game enthusiasts are faced with playing open world Forza, or Gran Turismo, or various simracers, or.....whatever EA is doing with the Need for Speed franchise, many lauded this series for being a welcome breath of fresh air.

There is still a lot left to do in terms of development, as the game is just about to release into Early Access. Wreckfest started off the same way, initially being titled "Next Car Game" and adding a ton of polish and content from the early access build to the final release around 4 years later - but, this one isn't expected to take as long. I know some here have a strict no-buy policy for Early Access games (and I used to be the same way), but if you have time to dig into the details you can often gauge whether the project is likely to see completion or not. I have no doubts that this one will simply because the studios behind it (Bugbear and THQ Nordic) have, well, an established history of actually releasing finished games (unlike some of the fledgling studios out there that crash and burn due to lack of funding or commitment to the project, etc.). I don't plan on buying this until more content is added since things are still early yet, but THQ is suposed to offer a 20% discount to existing owners of Wreckfest if you do want to support the development and get in early. Just keep in mind that they are still in the earlier phases of Early Access, so it's going to be fairly barebones until more updates come...speaking of which, the next content update is expected 2 months after Early Access begins, with lots more to come after that.

So with that said, here are some initial impressions:


View: https://youtu.be/WseWVK5x110?si=f6iuZT0pRYdEXsb6


View: https://youtu.be/pELe7d61V5w?si=UEBOoSryzQVeB-2c


View: https://youtu.be/1BkIEXAg4YM?si=1VVFzg0p_N2Ine72
 
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Yeah, it's still very early on. I would advise waiting unless you just have to have more Wreckfest now, while taking advantage of the discount as you wait for them to finish it.

As well received as Wreckfest was, I'm sure this one will eventually get there unless they make some really boneheaded moves.
 
I think Bugbear's rigid body physics got outdated the instant Rigs of Rods released in (checks notes: 2005). I can't believe they still seem to be using the same physics in 2025. At least as far as I can tell through videos it seems to be a rigid body model. I just wouldn't pay any money for this outdated technology when BeamNG exists. It feels too jarringly unrealistic in comparison. Not to mention that this is the same game as flatout was in 2004, just with updated graphics and more concurrent players.
 
M76 said:
I think Bugbear's rigid body physics got outdated the instant Rigs of Rods released in (checks notes: 2005). I can't believe they still seem to be using the same physics in 2025. At least as far as I can tell through videos it seems to be a rigid body model. I just wouldn't pay any money for this outdated technology when BeamNG exists. It feels too jarringly unrealistic in comparison. Not to mention that this is the same game as flatout was in 2004, just with updated graphics and more concurrent players.
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A comment from one of the videos I posted was by someone who seemed to have a little more insight on the physics:

"The crash physics are a sort of hybrid system that are part soft-body and part rigid-body collisions. With games like Beam-NG that are full soft-body, developers lose a lot of control over the gameplay (think of crash welding) but get a very realistic damage model. Since Wreckfest is a proper "racing" game, they use rigid-body collisions between cars so that you can have arcadey and consistent gameplay. What makes Wreckfest unique is that they also use the rigid-body impact information to deform a separate soft-body attached to the car, giving you the great damage visuals.

At least in Wreckfest 1 which I did several car mods for, the soft-body was defined by a group of shapes called "collision spheres," which were literally a bunch of spheres clustered together to vaguely form the shape of the car. These spheres were what actually moved and deformed based on the soft-body physics behind the scenes. Any parts of the car's mesh that were inside the volume of a particular sphere would be deformed along with it, giving you the visual damage that you see on the cars. As a modder you would manually create these collision spheres in a modelling program (Blender or 3Ds Max), tweaking them to get just the right damage behavior. You can actually see the collision spheres in single player with the debug menu.

It's hard to say what exact techniques Wreckfest 2 is using just by looking at it, but it appears to be similar in its overall concept. Things like the driver ducking when the roof caves in really help to sell it better than in Wreckfest 1"

I agree with you that BeamNG stands alone with its frequently way too over-the-top physics, but at least for me it's far more of an "F around to see what damage I can cause in this sandbox" game than a racing game with a semi-realistic damage model like what the Destruction Derby or Flatout games had. But, maybe I just haven't played enough of it. Many folks are happy to get a modern Flatout, which is why so many people liked Wreckfest. I don't know if this one will be better, though. Some are predicting yes, while others on YT are saying it's lacking content (no shit...it's extremely Early Access right now).
 
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