NASCAR Announces New Partnership With iRacing for 2025

Starting in 2025, iRacing will take over as NASCAR's official console gaming partner.

By Ricky Frech

Since 2018, NASCAR's video game branch has been handled by Motorsport Games, which has put out fan favorites like NASCAR Heat 5 and NASCAR Rivals. However, the racing juggernaut announced today that a new company will be taking over in 2025. While the new partnership hasn't announced a new game yet, NASCAR revealed that it will be partnering with iRacing for a new "simulation-style console" racer. Of course, this isn't the first time NASCAR and iRacing have partnered. The long-running sim-racing game has been working with NASCAR since 2010, but now the team is finally taking over the full brunt of the license.

"When we were approached with the option to acquire the license for the simulation-style NASCAR console game, which was the console game and franchise that we were dreaming about doing, it was an opportunity we couldn't pass up," said iRacing President Tony Gardner. "Having the ability to build a NASCAR console game is a privilege we promise to execute with the utmost care. We look forward to working diligently with NASCAR industry stakeholders to deliver a product that provides an amazing experience for the gaming community and NASCAR fans worldwide."

Gardner also noted that the team already has most of the "resources and technology assets" ready to go, so we shouldn't expect it to take too long to see the next game once the iRacing team takes over. For its part, NASCAR seems happy about the new partnership, with NASCAR managing director of esports and gaming Nick Rend saying, "iRacing has been an incredible partner and ambassador for the NASCAR industry for more than a decade. We...are ready to work with iRacing to deliver a best-in-class simulation-style NASCAR console game that's exciting for the gaming community and allows our fans to connect with the sport in an impactful, meaningful way."

What About Current NASCAR Games?

Included in the announcement was a quick blurb about current Motorsport Games titles. NASCAR says Motorsport will continue to support NASCAR Heat 5 and NASCAR Rivals through 2024. It's not clear if the games will be going away at that point, but if you're planning to pick them up, you should probably do so soon, just in case.

It's also worth noting that GameMill recently released the arcade racer NASCAR Arcade Rush. This new acquisition shouldn't have any impact on that because the iRacing deal is only for simulation racers. Arcade Rush and any other future arcade racers will operate outside of that agreement, meaning that we may see further games in the genre even before iRacing takes over in 2025.

NASCAR Heat 5 is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. NASCAR Rivals is out now on Switch, and NASCAR Arcade Rush is currently available on PlayStation, Switch, Xbox, and PC platforms. It's safe to say that NASCAR fans' video game present and future are both in a pretty good place following this announcement.

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