Motorsport Manager 2 looks like everything we hoped it would be

Playsport Games has awoken, 10 years after dropping the best motorsport management game ever, to show us how Motorsport Manager 2 is shaping up. It really shouldn’t be this exciting to see tyre selection menus and weather maps, but it is. This game looks like bona fide, ‘didn’t I used to have a family living here with me?’ life-consuming obsession material. In a good way.

Of course, the studio hasn’t actually been asleep in the intervening years since the original Motorsport Manager arrived on PC. It’s actually been busying away at a number of mobile releases based on the same experience, but it’s in the PC release that the concept can really stretch its legs and deliver a maximalist experience to drench the biggest automotive anorak’s cravings.

As such, the latest trailer and dev diary for the PC-bound sequel are a big deal.

So what’s new in the sequel?

A lot. We’ve spied lots of exciting improvements in the latest batch of gameplay, including AI drivers making mistakes and going off onto the grass, radar weather maps, and deep vehicle livery customisation.

But the most obvious change is a wider variety of motorsport classes, including modern F1-style open wheelers, endurance prototypes, and bikes.

Hang on – bikes?

You know, like cars but with two wheels. They weren’t present in the original, but in the sequel you can be the Gigi Dall’Igna of your own MotoGP ecosystem. It’s totally unlicensed of course, as with all the racing series in this game. But that actually ends up being a strength.

If you played a lot of Frontier’s excellent F1 Manager games you’ll know how well they simulated the sport in season one of your career save, and thus how limited their potential was to go completely off piste. That’s never been a problem for this series.

What if I want the real names though?

Leave it to the modders. The first game had a lively community of creators who made everything from additional fictional racing series to, well, the sort of thing that’d have FOM’s lawyers in a cold sweat.

Motorsport Manager 2 will feature full mod support from day one, and they’ve even hired one of the first game’s most prominent modders as a designer.

Why’s this taken 10 years?

Playsport isn’t delving into the specifics of that, but it likely has something to do with the studio’s previous publishing deal with Sega, mountains of complex rights paperwork, and the budget required to make a game of this scale.

In the end, that’s less important than the fact it’s happening at all. Frankly we’re very happy to pretend it’s 2016 again, as are our hairlines.

So what do you actually do?

Your role here is like a greatest hits compilation from the best jobs in the F1 paddock. You choose the design of your car, oversee its technical development, sign deals with sponsors, hire drivers, and build up your team facility.

And if that wasn’t a meaty enough job description, when a race weekend rolls around you’re in charge of both drivers’ setup, pit strategy, and lap-by-lap energy and tyre deployment.

That sounds a bit like F1 Manager…

With good reason. 2016’s Motorsport Manager provided a fantastic blueprint for the whole genre, and Frontier clearly had an eye on that blueprint. Where the two series most obviously diverge is in Playsport’s penchant for cheeky humour. Think tabloid stories about your driver’s exploits and fruity dialogue lines from them during your interactions.

That said, the two aren’t totally separate entities. Frontier’s Carlos Lopes has joined the Playsport team after having worked on F1 Manager.

What happens next?

We spend an indeterminate amount of time gently vibrating with excitement while Playsport finishes the game, which is due out some time in 2027.