"Despite our long heritage and pedigree in making critically-acclaimed racing games, Project Cars is by far the grandest and most intricately detailed of them all. Despite therefore the game being 99.9 per cent complete, the remaining 0.1 per cent attending to small issues and bugs has been tricky to anticipate," said studio head Ian Bell.
"We're absolutely dedicated to delivering a ground-breaking experience and by targeting mid-May fans can be assured that's what they'll receive.
"There's a high expectancy from racing fans around the world that Project CARS is going to be an exciting new contender in the simulation racing space and we firmly believe gamers deserve it to be in its most complete and polished state when they come to play it on day one."
Slightly Mad Studios is offering "free content" by way of apology, though it hasn't yet confirmed what the content will actually be.
It's funny that they have announced this now as just today I got an email from them saying.....
We're happy to announce that we are ready to distribute the WMD member copies of Project CARS. Please make sure to read the information below carefully:
Just got it as a belated birthday gift from an IRL friend on steam, gives me a nice sim to play with my G27. It better work damn near flawlessly for all the time it's been delayed though.
Some takeaways that aren't obvious from watching the video:
* Being able to feel the grip through the wheel is mindblowing. In iRacing you try to go a little faster and then are suddenly facing the wrong way with a x4 SR penalty. In this I can almost always tell that if I push a tiny bit more, I'll be spinning wheels, and possibly the car as well. Might explain why so many video watchers accuse the game of being too easy/grippy. I accuse many of the others of being unrealistically slippery.
* AI are (usually) amazing imo. Yes you can turn the setting down to overtake them all in one lap ala GT5 if you like, but if you find the right setting that matches your abilities, it's like racing in some online leagues I've been in. In this video I was using KERS to assist with passing (limited to one use per lap) but I still had to fight to gain (and keep) positions. I was quite lucky to not get suspension damage in one or two incidents. Go too rough (with damage enabled, of course) and you'll lose a wheel. To sum up, they're challenging, daring, and sometimes imperfect, which is what keeps me coming back for more. Winning is only important in career mode, but if I'm creating a custom race, I want the fun of racing mid-pack.
Hope you guys enjoy the game. It's been a blast inside WMD and it feels a little strange now. Not everything is perfect, but SMS really have listened to the community to everyone's benefit. Development will continue for ~2 years. New cars/tracks/disciplines and also league tools are among the things planned so far.
Nice video. Good catch at around 7 min. In other games, like Assetto and iRacing, that would have resulted in a pre-programmed spin without the possibility for recovery.
This gives you more the thrills of real racing from the looks of it.