Assetto Corsa Rally Announced: KUNOS Physics Meets Gravel, With Promising Early Access Caveats

KUNOS physics goes full gravel – and that’s the headline

As someone who still boots up Richard Burns Rally and put ungodly hours into DiRT Rally 2.0, this caught my attention for one reason: KUNOS’ handling model in a dedicated rally sim. 505 Games and Supernova Games Studios (with KUNOS Simulazioni in a technical partnership) just announced Assetto Corsa Rally, hitting PC Early Access on Steam November 13, 2025, for $29.99/£24.99/€29.99. It promises laser-scanned stages, dynamic weather, a serious damage model, and that trademark Assetto feel-tuned for jumps, cambers, and loose surfaces.

• KUNOS’ refined physics specifically for rally, supervised by the Assetto team.
• Laser-scanned stages and dynamic surfaces aim to move the needle on realism.
• Early Access starts small (33 km, 10 cars) with a clear content roadmap.
• Unreal Engine 5 visuals, planned VR, online later-performance will be the test.

Breaking down the announcement

Supernova’s building this with KUNOS’ physics as the core, which is the right call. Rally isn’t just “grip but lower”—you need believable weight transfer over crests, surface transitions that punish sloppy inputs, and tire models that actually dig into gravel rather than slide like ice. They’re talking temperature, humidity, and water affecting grip; day-night cycles; and a damage system that changes how the car behaves, not just how it looks. Pacenotes come from pro co-drivers, recorded with their voices—please let the timing be tight and customizable, because bad calls ruin otherwise excellent sims.

Content-wise, Early Access launches with 33 km of laser-scanned roads, 4 special stages with 18 variants across Wales gravel and Alsace tarmac, 10 cars spanning Group B, WRC, and Rally2, five game modes, and triple-screen support. Full release aims for 120+ km, five rallies, 30+ cars, a rally school, career, online multiplayer, and complete VR support. That’s a modest but sensible scope if the physics are genuinely deep.

Laser scanning in rally: bold claim, bigger expectations

The team is pitching laser-scanned rally stages as a first for the genre. If they truly scan every stage, that’s a big deal. Rally lives on surface fidelity—subtle cambers, broken edges, and those off-camber kinks that spit you into the trees if you breathe wrong. Historically, Codemasters and KT’s WRC games leaned on GPS/photogrammetry or handcrafted stages, not full laser scans throughout. The catch: scanning is expensive, which might explain the small EA footprint. I’ll take smaller, meticulously captured stages over bloated, samey ribbons—if the road quality justifies the trade-off.

The claim sets a high bar, though. If the “laser scan” ends up applied selectively—or the stages feel too safe and sanitized—it’ll be obvious. Rally players notice when kerbs, cuts, and ruts don’t line up with the car’s physics. That’s the difference between “nice” and “I can feel the crown of the road through my wheel.”

Early Access, but with KUNOS DNA

KUNOS has history here: the original Assetto Corsa and Competizione both used Early Access to tune physics and build content with the community. The twist is that Supernova is leading development while KUNOS supervises and provides the physics tech. That’s encouraging, but not a rubber stamp. What will make or break this is the force feedback and tire behavior on loose surfaces—can you feel weight transfer setting up a Scandinavian flick, does the car dig under braking into gravel, and do jumps land with believable compression and recovery without pogoing?

Online multiplayer is “gradual throughout EA,” which is fine for a rally sim since most of us grind time trials and leaderboards anyway. The bigger near-term questions: wheel support breadth (clutch, sequential/H-pattern, handbrake), robust replays and telemetry export, and modding. Assetto’s modding scene kept the brand alive for a decade; the press info is quiet on mods here. Even if stages aren’t user-built, opening cars, liveries, and telemetry would be a win.

Unreal Engine 5 and performance: proceed with guarded optimism

They’ve customized UE5 for racing, which sounds great until you remember EA WRC’s rocky PC launch on Unreal. Rally simmers run triples, VR, and high-refresh wheels—your engine has to feed all of that with rock-solid frame pacing or the immersion dies. One promising note: rally is mostly against the clock, not dense AI packs, and KUNOS says the freed CPU headroom goes straight into physics, mechanical behavior, and tire models. That’s the right priority. Still, I want to see how it holds up in rain at night on triples with heavy FFB before I crown anything.

Why this matters right now

The rally sim space is weirdly underserved. DiRT Rally 2.0 is aging, EA WRC has good ideas but inconsistent performance and stage feel, and RBR is timeless but held together by mods and community wizardry. A modern, focused rally sim with KUNOS-grade physics and genuinely accurate roads could reset the standard. The price is fair for Early Access if the driving model lands. If Supernova nails the feel and KUNOS keeps the physics uncompromised, we might finally have a new benchmark—and not just a nostalgia trip.

Hands-on is imminent at the SimRacing Expo in Dortmund, which means we should start hearing real impressions from wheel users soon. That feedback will matter way more than any trailer.

TL;DR

Assetto Corsa Rally brings KUNOS’ physics to rally with laser-scanned stages and dynamic surfaces, launching PC Early Access on Nov 13, 2025 for $29.99. The scope is lean but focused; if the FFB, tire model, and road detail deliver—and UE5 performance holds—it could be the rally sim to beat.