Earlier this week, moments ahead of the NASCAR 26 Gold Edition launch on Tuesday, iRacing developers were hanging out, anticipating the feedback that was to come. The vast majority of reviews were positive.
“In my history, it’s one of the smoothest releases I’ve ever seen,” producer at iRacing, told Jayski.com in a conversation earlier this week.
With iRacing taking over as the new publisher of NASCAR console games in 2025, the company wanted to establish trust through its customers. Prior to last year, there hadn’t been a NASCAR game in a handful of years, and prior to that, the publishing company had switched multiple times.
The goal with NASCAR 25 was to get all the bugs out of the way. It had nearly two years to develop the first iRacing NASCAR console game, knowing it would need every second of that time as it was developing an entirely new system.
“It was a great foundation to build on and I think fans could see that right away with the driving, physics and some sort of the core gameplay,” Lewis said of the success of NASCAR 25.
New to NASCAR 26 are updated graphics that feature a dynamic cloud system. Sunlight will come out of the clouds at various portions of each track, creating real-life shadows. A welcomed addition this year was the ability of having a post-race celebration via a new particle system for enhanced smoke and debris, burning the tires off the virtual car after capturing the checkered flag.
The biggest difference from NASCAR 25, however, is having a dynamic track, which is featured in races that are at least 13% in length and upward. It’s a very realistic accessory that takes players through what an entire race weekend would look like.
“The first lap of practice is completely green and then it rubbers in all the way through the last lap of the race and the checkered flag,” Lewis stated. “You will see AI move around to try and find grip like you are, they run different lines, searching around. It adds more strategy aspects.”
The other big change is the ability for cross-platform gameplay. No longer do PlayStation 5 owners only can play against fellow PlayStation holders. Rather, they can compete online against Xbox Series X|S users.
“It’s been cool these first couple of days to see them being able to play against each other because that’s what cross-platforming is all about,” he added. “You can create a lobby, turn on cross-platform, which allows other players in other systems to join your lobby.”
Other key features include an improved career mode with performance coaching and tips from eight-time Cup Series winner Jamie McMurray and longtime crew chief and current broadcaster Steve Letarte. That pairing is also involved in the Peak Performance features, showing players the ideal lines, where to accelerate and liftpoints at each circuit.
“Most everybody in the world makes the mistake of overdriving the corner,” Lewis said of newcomers. “They drive in super deep and either jam on the brake or realize they are in trouble and drift up the track and hit the wall. That’s pretty much everyone’s first experience.
“The whole design of this is to break that habit. It’s to show that actually, these guys lift and start braking way earlier than you think they would. The result of that is, it allows them to get on the gas way sooner than you think they would – it teaches that mechanic.”
Users are also enabled to change driver ratings throughout the field. If they grow tired of the normal frontrunners dominating, they can bump their overall standing down for better competition. The original driver ratings were distributed through help from Racing Insights, with updates sporadically coming in October and November.
“If you think Racing Insights is wrong and you want to edit it, you can do that. If you just simply don’t like a guy and want him to run in the back, you can do that too,” Lewis said with a chuckle. “Conversely, if that’s your hero and maybe he’s not so great in real life but you want him dominating, you can bump him up to 99 and do whatever you want.”
With future installments of the game, iRacing is hoping to bump up the release date by two weeks to align with the start of The Chase. Admittedly, getting a game to launch ahead of the Daytona 500 would be a near impossible task as driver lineups and paint scheme submissions would have a deadline around this time of the year.
Given the Sept. 18 release date of the Standard Edition, data shows there will be multiple spikes in purchases, starting this week. Then comes the holiday window prior to February’s “Great American Race” boost.
“The reality is, if you back everything out and you look at time and how long it takes to finish a game, you basically have to know right now what car you’re going to drive at Daytona – and how many teams can actually answer that question right now?” Lewis noted. “Drivers move, sponsors are going to change, car numbers can change. There’s a lot of hurdles that make it very difficult to make it able to ship in that February window.”
There will be multiple downloadable content (DLC) opportunities in the coming months. The last update will likely come in December as then gears will be shifted towards NASCAR 27.
“The challenge is, everything you want to do in that regard has the opportunity to go against NASCAR 27,” he said. “It becomes this balancing act when you’ve got to either bring in more resources that are either only focused on doing the additional content with DLC. Or you have to make this conscious decision to split the resources over what’s going on in 2027, and that’s the part we’re still figuring out.”
Regardless, the first week reviews from Gold Edition players have been superb.