If people have played the first two installments in the Project CARS franchise, they'll probably know they're sim racing games aimed at the professional world. Unlike Gran Turismo and others, no currency was involved and the main mode was basically a calendar following a determined series of motorsport, all spiced up with detailed and professional options to modify your car and realistic (or so they were sold as) effects like the weather and everything else.

If the people who are happy and proud this franchise exists are expecting their latest installment, I have bad news for you. Basically, everything I've listed above has been scrapped. Now there's currency to have your own garage, now you go from amateur driver to pro just like in GT... The weather and realistic effects may still remain untouched with all their glory, possibly augmented even more, but I wouldn't be too positive about this because the worst part is yet to come.

The development team says that this new entry is aimed at a different target. The previous two games were too pro for the general public, and they've aimed for something simpler. This can probably bring good changes, like how they've replaced the racing line in a way more similar to what trackdays do in the real world, but the problem comes when the developers don't even know what they're saying.

The following lines have been extracted from the games official website, more precisely from the developers blog. Please rejoice at the absolute nonsense of these awesome words.

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Kris Pope, Lead Designer. With this new installment, the direction was to laser-in on what makes motorsport evoke so much passion in those of us who love the sport.

Also Kris Pope. Now you don’t need to spend hours in a practice session working out the tyre life of a set of tyres for one car in one condition, and you don’t need to do the maths on how many litres of fuel you need to finish the race.

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Laser-in on what makes motorsport evoke so much passion. You conquer the hearts of many with those words. But then, just a few moments after that, you say that tire life doesn't exist, and there's no fuel consumption nor any effect of its quantity on the weight and handling of the car. To top it off, if we go down a few more lines on said blog, we see that now we don't even need to change tires depending on the condition nor are the compounds any different from each other.

So, we're basically down to the likes of the sim racing games of the mid 90s in terms of realistic races. Even a 1999 game like GT2 already had tire wear. And all of this just because they want to flip off the people who loved how the previous two games felt very close to reality itself or probably even surpassed it?

I had seen very bad comments about PC3 since I read it was to be released in a few months, but I wanted to check a potential demo to help me decide if I bought it. With this batch of news coming from an official source, I'm totally skipping this game and sticking even more to PC2 and its prequel.

I'm absolutely mad at these news. A franchise I had placed at the top of them all has basically fallen down to the lowest floor in a matter of seconds. And since the developers think they're doing the right thing even if their words make no sense at all, unless this game flops the franchise has its new route all set and go, meaning the original formula for the franchise will be forever dead.

I don't know if anybody here will share my pain and rage at this, but I totally needed to let this off. Now I have one less franchise on my radar, and at this rate, I'll even lose interest in getting a next generation console because I won't get enough games for it to justify the costs.

Yeah i've played both project cars games a bit for sure. I mean i did the 24 hour race trophy so.. yeah...

Honestly speaking the narrative of a driving game doesn't matter that much to me... If i can have fun in it i'll play it.

Take the last few need for speed games.. they've been all over the place and even though they're trying to make the franchise have story arcs in each game that isn't the reason i play them for sure.. as most of them are corny and predictable honestly.

It's a hard one to judge also.. but then again i play the WRC and F1 games casually as well.. so yeah.. i just pretty much play driving games as a chill game.

sonicmcmuffin : I honestly have no problem if they want to make the game like this, my problem is how they're selling it to the public.

The Need for Speed games never stated they offered a realistic driving experience nor did ever care for that, it was just drive and run and have fun. But these guys say that PC3 evokes more about motorsport than PC2 despite ignoring important real-life motorsport facts. The most realistic driving experience can't be sold like this, even less be developed like this.

If they want to ditch the pro aspects to aim for a higher target audience, then simply state so. This game won't be a better sim racer than PC2 simply because it won't be as close to reality. People may have more fun playing it than PC2, but once again, both games can't be sold with the same words of excellence.

I always ignored how people said this is more like NFS Shift 3 rather than Project Cars 3, but I refused to listen because people say whatever they want over the net. But now that the developers have spoken (and in this specific case, dropped the A-bomb), I absolutely agree with this game being Shift 3. And it will be very good at it, trust me.

Truth be told, the reason I like Project Cars isn't the interface. Whether it's a tried and true career mode with no money or something more like Need for Speed Heat, where you buy upgrades and new cars... what I want above all else is a quality racing sim, that is on par with the best of the best in the racing world.

Project Cars has been a magnificent franchise, in this respect, because it handles like a sim, but feels like it's not so simmy that it's unfun to play. And it never feels unfair, like things are out of your reach.

I don't know if I'll buy the third game. Not because I feel like it will suck. I feel like it will still be awesome. But I didn't see a big jump from PC to PC2, and I don't feel like the jump from PC2 to PC3 will be any bigger. I'll be sticking with PC2 for the time being.

legacyme3 : I must agree with you in the fact that PC2 feels not so sim-like. I've already tried Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition and things are so different there that in a sense I do miss playing PC2, but that feeling soon goes away.

The interface is very complete. Full seasons, massive display with several options, ways to help amateurs tune their cars to their liking... In a sense, PC2 was the game that best tried to blend in pros and amateurs alike, and in my opinion it succeeded at that.

What's for sure is that it won't be a quality sim because it's a major step back. No race strategies because there's no pit stops basically kills the fun of a sim racer. That's why I moved to AC, I still want that bit of realism in my sim racer of choice and PC3 won't bring it to me, no matter how good it handles or whatever.