Just a little less than a week until it releases (in early access), NASCAR 25 has given us its first look at gameplay and it seems to have quelled some doubts in the fanbase, while leaving a few more questions on the table. 

The reveal comes after IRacing dropped small hints and tidbits about the game over the course of the year. The marketing approach for the game was….interesting to say the least. Rather than give us a truth in depth look behind the scenes, they held developer interviews that were rather vague and the only images we saw of the game were taken off of a TV in the background of a picture.

Hardly anything could be inferred, and that festered doubts and speculation from the fanbase, who admittedly have been burnt by the last few NASCAR video games. It didn’t help that when IRacing began to show some snippets of gameplay, it inexplicably was in 10 FPS. No way the game could be this unoptimized….right?

Well in an unusual turn of events for modern gaming, NASCAR 25’s full gameplay reveal was stellar, dousing a good amount of doubts in water and not Sunoco fuel. First we got NASCARs official reveal with driver Anthony Alfredo which was the kind of content we have been waiting for. Don’t ask me why they chose to go to Young Motorsports and picked an Xfinity lifer to showcase the game, though, going to a Cup garage makes much more sense. 

Regardless, the video dropped along with a few other content creators’, giving us a good sense of what to expect, so without further ado lets get into it. I’ll be breaking this piece up into sections so if there’s any specific thing you’re curious about, it’ll be down here for you.

GRAPHICS/SOUND

We already had a feeling graphics were up to snuff but the gameplay reveal really blew us away, during daytime that is. When the sun is out, the cars look unbelievable and utilize ray tracing to give reflections. Tracks are all scanned and look phenomenal, and there’s even a slight lens glare as you rip around a track during sunset. All good and well, then came some nighttime gameplay from Daytona.

Now I won’t go as far as to say it looked like the Heat games. Cars are still looking good and have amazing detail, but the track ambience seems a little off? I can’t describe it but it looks a bit dated in a way, maybe I just haven’t played a night race in a NASCAR game in five years and I sound clueless. We’ll see on the 14th. Despite this, graphics shine the most in pre and post race settings. It’s also of note to mention that it looked somewhat better on a more condensed location like North Wilkesboro. 

Sound design is where the folks at IRacing really went to bat. The engine notes are fantastic and separate between series, which is a huge plus. The spotter seems to be nicely balanced, and it was reported that they used AI tools along with actual recordings from races, which is a great usage of AI as a tool (looking at you EA). I think the mark has been hit for the game when it comes to the immersiveness that you want from it, which brings us to our next section. 

Gameplay

From everything we’ve seen and heard up to this point, NASCAR 25 made sure the most important part of its product is squared away. I was one of the people who figured no matter what, this would be the game’s bread and butter. I know we’ve been burned multiple times, but if the folks responsible for the most comprehensive virtual racing experience can’t make sure the game works as intended, who can?

Luckily there hasn’t been a single source I’ve come to find that has scathing issues with the gameplay. We heard from Xfinity driver Anthony Alfredo that the game feels like the real deal in terms of tightness and looseness, aero and track specifications. The game also has easily the most comprehensive set of assists you can enable or disable, taking what the Heat game gave us and expanding upon it. It’s another reason we can’t make true judgments based on what we have. Many players didn’t have AI difficulty up all the way and some had assists on, so the true experience you want won’t be found until the game’s release.

Speaking of the AI, its one of the things that’s still a little iffy after the gameplay. Many players were feeling like it was too robotic, like the Heat series. RealRadman, a prominent NASCAR gaming youtuber, showed how a wreck at Daytona will still incite the entire pack to slow down at the exact same time. This was always an issue for me because it immediately ruins any chance of huge wrecks caused by drivers trying to miss it. This along with no caution replays is something very frustrating for me personally. When the action stops I would like to see why, doesn’t seem too hard to figure out either. 

The only road course racing we’ve seen was some ARCA gameplay at Watkins Glen. The cars lines seemed a bit rigid there as well, but changing things with sliders will be something we feel out after release. So far the gameplay LOOKS the bill, but that only gives us so much. We will be ready 

UI/Modes

This is an aspect of the game that had some big worries when we didn’t have much info. Would the UI and Menus be slow? Especially with the game previews themselves being in 20 frames? What sort of modes will we have?

So far, the UI for the main menu and the driver select screen is pretty sleek. You have a nice render of William Byron’s 24 Chevy with some footage from the season rotating behind it. I do hope this can change based on a “favorite driver” choice you make as you boot up the game. A nice lineup of the games modes as you’d expect, but nothing special. Career, quick race, online and a “championship mode”, better known as a season mode. It’s nice to see a season mode, no doubt. Career seems deeper than we anticipated, including a much more robust finance management, a social media page (with real NASCAR pundits), and fun pitfalls in your finance management that you have to wrangle. I’m sure there’s much more to it, but it sucks that there isn’t a full in depth dive of every mode. 

Even EA can give us 5,000 word dumps on every game mode their College Football game has, what is the secrecy from IRacing here? They truly have no room to be so silent about their game. It’s an odd business practice, and I will be ecstatic when it’s finally over. I wish we could get a “moments” mode that allows you to recreate historic moments from the sports history, or even change it, but those sort of modes are null and void from sports games these days anyway (sadly). 

Conclusions/Expectations 

Cam: Well, I was always in the boat of “I’m buying this game no matter what”, and that still is very true, but MAN. It’s my duty as a proud writer of NASCAR’s hottest new blog (we swear) to buy the deluxe of this game so we can get content fired up, but it feels like such a hollow and rather scary purchase due in part to what’s been shown to us. 

If you go to the NASCAR 25 FAQ page for their game, it has 15 questions. SEVEN of them revolve around either pre-ordering and it’s bonuses, games price or DLC. Nothing about modes, development intricacies or small nuances. Just questions about the money. It doesn’t sit right with me, and if my purchase is somehow in vain, I will hold nothing back. 

That being said, I don’t see that being the case. I just really think the way they marketed this game was the wrong choice. Have you ever been in a new relationship and one partner suffers from years of past transgressions from exes, so no matter how good the other person is, there’s still a level of distrust no matter what? Same situation, except if the new partner kept showing you small parts of their better habits, talking a lot of game, but not letting you all the way in. We need reassurance man, and second hand stuff from paid employees does not scratch that itch. Plus the fact things like caution replays are omitted just seems wrong. We also were promised a paint booth reveal that we never got. How is a triple A studio moving like an unpaid intern?  

I am expecting something akin to the Heat games with a deeper career mode, better graphics and better physics. Nothing too crazy of a change, but that’s exactly how I want it. Build from the foundation and create the game you want. Nevertheless, Jack and I will be there for the game’s early release at 9 PM PST on 10/9, and we have heaps of content ready to go. 

Jack: After NASCAR Heat Evolution broke my heart and taught me “smart consumer practices” at the ripe age of 12, I am hesitant to get excited about NASCAR ‘25. Everything that’s been shown has left me generally positive, but there’s a small voice in the back of my head warning me not to get too excited. 

Luckily the game has been so poorly marketed that the hype build up has gotten to me much. My focus lies on career mode, which I hope is at least a little more interesting than what the Heat series delivered. As a gamer who loves racing games and sucks at them, I depend a lot on a creative career mode to keep me engaged with the game. I really hope there’s an element of progression outside of climbing the ranks because otherwise I might as well just replay Dirt to Daytona at that point.

Outside of that, I hope that the game copies NASCAR: Ignition, HEAR ME OUT, in that the game has an awesome paint booth. I adore creating my own custom paint schemes even though they always end up looking like a 9 year old made them. Customizing sponsors, adding my own touches really makes the career mode feel alive and like the team is actually mine. I almost never created a custom team in the Heat Series because the car customization in that game is like chewing on rocks and the result usually looks worse. 

I’m hoping for a fun sim-cade experience that can immerse me into the NASCAR world once again. If the sport is serious about bringing in young fans, a new great game is a fantastic place to start because that’s how fans learn how a stock car feels, what a racetrack is like and who the drivers are. We’ve all got drivers we despise purely from old games, my brother doesn’t even watch the sport and has a burning passion for Jennifer Jo Cobb from NASCAR ‘11. 

If NASCAR ‘25 can deliver on those things, you’ll be getting some very happy and glazing articles coming your way on 10/10