iRacing Studios: Everything you need to know

iRacing Studios Origins

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During 2020 and 2021, iRacing witnessed a dramatic uptake in subscribers and player numbers, as real-world drivers and fans flocked to sim racing during the pandemic.

Instead of resting on its laurels, behind the scenes, the company invested in additional projects, with the stated intention of widening its sim racing audience. In short, iRacing hopes to create more accessible titles for consoles, garner long-term racing fans in future, and point them towards an iRacing membership on PC.

It started with a surprise move, purchasing a little-known indie early access game made by two brothers. DRAG: Outer Zones was an off-road racing game set in space with a minuscule player base.

The team, the game and the technology became part of iRacing late in 2021, and then a month later, it purchased Minnesota-based Monster Games. That team then went on to create the first game under iRacing, separate from the PC simulation, World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing.

It was a low-key beginning, but the official dirt oval racing game warranted a sequel in 2024. In that same year, ExoCross was released, which was a rebranded DRAG once it had completed early access.

So far, pretty insignificant…

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NASCAR and IndyCar

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This, it transpires, was just the beginning of a larger plan. In 2023, iRacing purchased the rights to make NASCAR games from the then beleaguered Motorsport Games.

Jackpot. The stock car racing series is the most-watched motorsport in the USA, and it now also has the aforementioned Monster Games team working on its official video game. Before the World of Outlaws titles, that team had made NASCAR Heat under a different parent organisation. 

So, it now owns the rights and the development team, and this month, two years later, it will release NASCAR 25 - the first official NASCAR game for PC, PlayStation and Xbox in over four years.

Next, it secured a deal to make an official IndyCar game too, North America’s pre-eminent open-wheeler series that incorporates the world’s largest single-day sporting event in the world - the Indy 500.

But who would create it, with Monster Games working on NASCAR? The answer: the small indie studio that made DRAG/ExoCross, Orontes Games. Only now, with a newly expanded team.

That space off-road racing game? Well, it transpires the technology used is state-of-the-art, and it’s this basis that will be used for the IndyCar game, mixed with the vehicle dynamics already created for the NASCAR 25 title.

Suddenly, it all fits together.

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How Console Games Can Help iRacing

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So, now operating under the ‘iRacing Studios’ moniker, there are several teams working on new racing games. But surely that’s a distraction for the main iRacing platform?

Apparently not, according to its Executive Vice President and Executive Producer, Steve Myers:

“The reason why we're able to create these additional games is because we have iRacing, this really robust and great product that is successful and allows us to continue to invest in it,” he said to Traxion recently.

“That allows us to build all these NASCAR and IndyCar tracks as we can look at and go ‘Hey, this isn't a bad decision to invest some money into a standalone NASCAR game or IndyCar game because we can leverage so much of what we've done at iRacing already.’”

These new games will drive differently and feature unique systems compared to iRacing, but they will use pre-made tracks and car models for the simulation, delivering economies of scale.

But, and this is where it should help the mothership, it also works the other way, too.

“Every track that's going to be in NASCAR 25 was updated in iRacing,” Myers continued.

“So the path would go: iRacing gets either a new track, or if it already has it, then a refresh, and then it goes into NASCAR 25.

“So everyone on iRacing benefits from the NASCAR 25 project already because new tracks became available and every existing NASCAR track in iRacing got updated for free.”

This push also resulted in a new-build ARCA series car, which was first available for iRacing and will then be added to NASCAR 25. Through the IndyCar game partnership, the second division Indy NXT (Dallara IL-15) car became available for the main platform last month, and the St. Petersburg track has been confirmed for development.

With IndyCar also having two new venues in the real world next season - Streets of Arlington and Streets of Markham - presumably, these will also be created for iRacing, too.

On the surface, it seems like iRacing Studios’ new video games may detract from the core simulation, but so far, it actually seems to be benefiting it. Let’s see how 2026 pans out.

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Written by the teams at trophi.ai and Traxion.GG.