Assetto Corsa Hits New Peak Player Record

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Assetto-Corsa-Peak-Player-Record-June-2024.jpg
Image: Kunos Simulazioni
The most popular racing simulator out there today has reached new heights: In its 10th year of existence, Assetto Corsa has set a new peak player record over the weekend.

There is no denying that Assetto Corsa is the darling of the sim racing world. The title will turn 10 years old this winter, but it is still going strong - or rather stronger than ever. Countless mods have elevated Kunos Simulazioni's debut title to heights the developer probably never expected.

For the longest time, the AC player peak was at just under 7,000, achieved when the game released on December 19, 2014. Since the pandemic, the title has gained a substantial amount of players, setting new peaks regularly. Most recently, the record was 19,317, set in December 2023.

On Sunday, June 23, Assetto Corsa set a new record at 19,661 concurrent players as per steamdb.info (19,585 according to steamcharts.com) - a remarkable feat considering the game's age. Without the enormous amount of mods, such as those in our download section, AC's history would most likely have been a very different one.

Assetto-Corsa-Peak-Player-Record-Stats.jpg

Image: steamdb.info

How long will the record last?​

At the time of writing this article, AC (and Assetto Corsa Competizione, too) are on sale on Steam, with the base game being a mere €1.99 and the Ultimate Edition €16.24. It is likely that those heavy discounts are part of why the new peak player record was set.

And it may well be that this record will not be around for too long. The Steam Summer Sale 2024 is just around the corner and is set to commence on June 27, 17:00 UTC. Usually, the Steam sales events offer enormous savings on all sorts of titles, including in sim racing. Keep an eye on our website for an overview of racing games that are part of the sale!

Were you part of the new Assetto Corsa peak player record on Sunday? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
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About author
Yannik Haustein
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

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Comments

DB_1973
Premium
OzBoz said:
It still looks like it's 2010 and you really don't need a 4090 for iRacing
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You don't need a 4090 for race room either! Teddy is just a braggart. Its funny he says his gear is to good for AC then cites the two titles older than AC as ones he plays!
 
I
the biggest problem I have with AC is that I like online racing and it seems like people in this sim like online cruising much more
 
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TeddyBearx said:
I have never liked Assetto, I play iRacing, raceroom, ACC or rF2/LMU, far better.
The majority has old PC and cheap wheel base and uses AC not as the closest thing from reality. The minority like me with simucube 2+ 4090 prefers higher level simulation and AC is far from being the best.
But the F1 driving feeling in AC is very good.
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This one is funny. If you think iRacing, raceroom, ACC, RF2, LMU feels "better" than AC you don't know how how cars handle and feel in real life. AC is by far the most realistic sim in the market.

I checked his profile and by registration date, that is a DTS/Covid era joiner, which explains the comment.

Verstappen surely has all the 4090's and simucubes. Even he said he doesn't like ACC and that AC is one of the best if not the best.
 
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DB_1973 said:
You don't need a 4090 for race room either! Teddy is just a braggart. Its funny he says his gear is to good for AC then cites the two titles older than AC as ones he plays!
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He's also a troll so just ignore. He throws in incendiary comments and then sits back and watches the thread blow up with all the attention he gets. Probably wasn't hugged enough as a child.
 
K
jonelsorel said:
All things being equal, if a 10 year old game is the most played sim out there in 2024, that says a lot about and to the more recent competition. Notes should definitely be taken about what to offer in a sim (open to modding being number one), if somebody else aims to have this kind of success and longevity in a sim. No developer in their right mind can excuse themselves that they didn't know the recipe.
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Sad part of that though is that much of its popularity is mario kart tracks and cars, drivable CROCS, roller coasters!! myriad of awful awful drift cars, awful ripped GT2 tracks and cars and loads of stolen assets from other titles and a really awful toxic community which steals from other games then encrypts or takes others mods and then sells them on.....

Having said all of that i have 4000 hrs in it and mod solely for myself and play it my way.
 
OzBoz
instinkt8 said:
the biggest problem I have with AC is that I like online racing and it seems like people in this sim like online cruising much more
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I think some do but looking at the online servers available they mostly don't have anything to do with cruising. Before I started racing in a league I was just doing Nordschleife laps which is great fun and if you've done it enough it starts to feel like cruising. Now being in a league it racing twice a week and trying to work on my pace while having fun. I'm really old and personally I don't understand why people watching others overtaking cars on YouTube and even pay to watch. But that's maybe because I don't like wasting time being passive, same with TV. I rather do something myself than watching others. Think you should join a league so you race regular with a bunch of people, works better than join some online casual races I think.
 
OzBoz
kamov22 said:
Sad part of that though is that much of its popularity is mario kart tracks and cars, drivable CROCS, roller coasters!! myriad of awful awful drift cars, awful ripped GT2 tracks and cars and loads of stolen assets from other titles and a really awful toxic community which steals from other games then encrypts or takes others mods and then sells them on.....

Having said all of that i have 4000 hrs in it and mod solely for myself and play it my way.
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I'm currently at almost 4500 hrs and you absolutely have a point about a lot of trash created but it's not that Crocs and Lego cars are the average mod. Some really popular modders don't even get the brake callipers on the right side of the disc. Doesn't says a lot about being toxic, but incapable, sure.

On the other hand groups like RSS/VRC/URD create really nice mods from scratch and they are worth the few euro they cost.

If you call every community toxic because there's trash around, don't bother other games where people can create mods, it's all the same. I personally couldn't care less if a car model is ripped from another game, let the owners of that game care. I is a shame though the physics most of the time suck so I don't get the fact people pay for those. At least you won't end up with 2 million polygon model since it's not ripped from a game but from Sketchfab or a model for 3D renders.

I'm an old guy and I'm mostly amazed by the fact that trash sells. These days a lot of people seem to care about quantity over quality, in general, not just with mods. I could start a Patreon page with liveries I do or custom showrooms I'm working on. But people can forget I'll produce 2 liveries a week. I'm way too picky on what I create but if others enjoy badly made/ripped trash, why care. Not my problem and not your problem as well I would say. Think it's also healthier not to get too frustrated by the behaviour of others.
 
Pete Conway
Premium
Lafrente said:
...

Verstappen surely has all the 4090's and simucubes. Even he said he doesn't like ACC and that AC is one of the best if not the best.
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That's because he's not played GTL-GTR2 a twenty year old game. ;)
In all seriousness though, I only dip my toes into AC because of the on-line racing with mates, and an occasional solo hotlap in a classic, anything else is for GTL-GTR2, the graphics don't really matter to me that much (though I will admit that the cars and most of the tracks do look better in AC) it's more because I can immerse myself far deeper in the old Simbin title, especially especially with all the classic/historic mods on.

So I guess when I'm online Steam counts me in with the rabble* that drift around the Nords with a Hurrican getting in the way of my 250F, but, I will say there's some very fast and respectful drivers that lap there, I still remember only just getting out of the way of an LMP going at least 80mph faster than me... I bet he/she was as startled as I was... he/she was lapping about 5mins and change.

*;)
 
P
replicaz1427 said:
He's also a troll so just ignore. He throws in incendiary comments and then sits back and watches the thread blow up with all the attention he gets. Probably wasn't hugged enough as a child.
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Maybe that explains his nickname, he's desperate for a hug.
 
achi.nin
mcroshaw said:
Its not really down to Kunos though is it? Apart from the fact they made the game easy to mod. And some of the modders are probably making more out of it than they do. The CSP guy earns around 40k a month I believe...
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Don't underestimate the work that Kunos made in the first place. I've got a bunch of sims, from Gt Legends, GTR2, Automobilista to RaceRoom and Race 07 and I can tell you that Kunos made an amazing physics model. The Maserati MC12, Porsche 962, 911 RSR, Praga R1, Ferrari 599 XX, Lotus 2-Eleven, Sauber C9 and a lot of other cars are beautifully modeled and are a joy to drive lap after lap. Same goes with the tracks, rich of details and nicely modeled. The biggest shortcoming imho is the lack of a well-structured single player career mode like Grid or Project Cars, apart from that, I still love AC in its vanilla version.
 
achi.nin
Lafrente said:
This one is funny. If you think iRacing, raceroom, ACC, RF2, LMU feels "better" than AC you don't know how how cars handle and feel in real life. AC is by far the most realistic sim in the market.

I checked his profile and by registration date, that is a DTS/Covid era joiner, which explains the comment.

Verstappen surely has all the 4090's and simucubes. Even he said he doesn't like ACC and that AC is one of the best if not the best.
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Have you ever tried Automobilista? The first one with the ISI engine and Niels Heusinkveld responsible for the physics. It's easily one of the best sims out there and the realism is mindblowing. Last Sunday I've played it for 7 hours straight and didn't even realize it if it wasn't for some eye soreness.
 
achi.nin
replicaz1427 said:
I flit between AC, AMS1 and LMU. They are all rather tremendous titles. Powerful AC.
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I'm still in love with AMS1, I've played it for 7 hours straight last Sunday, that MCR prototype is sheer perfection: 179 bhp, 525 kg, perfect to learn how to drive a car with high downforce fast, the way the rear end pivots when you lift the throttle on slow corners is so beautiful that almost had me crying.
 

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RichardHessels
TeddyBearx said:
I have never liked Assetto, I play iRacing, raceroom, ACC or rF2/LMU, far better.
The majority has old PC and cheap wheel base and uses AC not as the closest thing from reality. The minority like me with simucube 2+ 4090 prefers higher level simulation and AC is far from being the best.
But the F1 driving feeling in AC is very good.
Click to expand...
It all depends on the cars and tracks. Properly made and finely tuned cars, with good tire data can blow any sim out of the water.
Same goes for rFactor 2 or even Automobilista 1.
They are all used by real racing teams around the world.
Most teams don't have the recourses for big simulators with a full featured data center behind it.
They use normal sim"games" with a high end rig and they all have their own preferences for how they think their model physics should behave.
But developing just one car model and the tracks they need for the season you can come a long way.
Teams are making their simulation better every year, tweaking the data.
In the end you have a very good simulation that comes close in to the 1 tenth of second.
And setup changes even correlate to the real world.
Giving a proper head start for the next race.

BTW.
Most of you would hate the handling of the sim cars with fast setups.
But guys like Max or Rudy will go seconds faster with it.
 
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achi.nin said:
Have you ever tried Automobilista? The first one with the ISI engine and Niels Heusinkveld responsible for the physics. It's easily one of the best sims out there and the realism is mindblowing. Last Sunday I've played it for 7 hours straight and didn't even realize it if it wasn't for some eye soreness.
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AMS1 is alright. AMS2 is hovercraft simulator.
 
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Lafrente said:
AMS1 is alright. AMS2 is hovercraft simulator.
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AMS 1 is great because you can tell what the back end is doing, and once you know that then you've got a really good grasp of how hard you can push and where you are with the limits of the car/tyre. Without going way off into the weeds, AMS2 you can still drive like a rock ape. Whenever I say that people often say, "but you get punished with tyre wear!". Ok, that may be, but in other titles you STILL get punished with tyre wear AND you also end up facing the wrong way. AMS2 does not teach you car manners. I sincerely hope Reiza does get there with the madness engine - but I think they're still some way off.
 
achi.nin
Lafrente said:
AMS1 is alright. AMS2 is hovercraft simulator.
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Lmao I always wondered why they changed from ISI to Project Cars 2 engine, I mean, if you're looking for the highest level of realism out there PC2 shouldn't be what you're looking for. I saw tons of YT videos comparing the 2 and talking about how AMS1 was perfect right outside of the box and how AMS2 always felt unpolished. I think Reiza worked a lot in the latest patch to improve the situation, but we could only imagine how would have worked a AMS2 with a better engine from the start.
 
achi.nin
replicaz1427 said:
AMS 1 is great because you can tell what the back end is doing, and once you know that then you've got a really good grasp of how hard you can push and where you are with the limits of the car/tyre. Without going way off into the weeds, AMS2 you can still drive like a rock ape. Whenever I say that people often say, "but you get punished with tyre wear!". Ok, that may be, but in other titles you STILL get punished with tyre wear AND you also end up facing the wrong way. AMS2 does not teach you car manners. I sincerely hope Reiza does get there with the madness engine - but I think they're still some way off.
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The big question is: why did they feel the urge to change the engine? And why did they choose one out of a sim-cade game? The feeling that I have is that they're constantly trying to polish and improve an engine that wasn't meant for total realism in the first place.
 
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achi.nin said:
The big question is: why did they feel the urge to change the engine? And why did they choose one out of a sim-cade game? The feeling that I have is that they're constantly trying to polish and improve an engine that wasn't meant for total realism in the first place.
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because it has nice graphics and optimisation
seems like they expected less troubles with fixing some physics issues that still haunts them
 
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