Assetto Corsa Rally Drops Out of Nowhere — Here’s Why Sim Racers Should Care

A surprise rally sim from the Assetto Corsa team – and it actually makes sense

This caught my attention because Kunos Simulazioni doesn’t announce new games lightly. The studio behind Assetto Corsa and Competizione rolled up to SimRacing Expo 2025 and dropped Assetto Corsa Rally, a hardcore rally sim heading to Steam Early Access on November 13. It’s co-developed with Supernova Games (also under Digital Bros), built on tech shared with Assetto Corsa EVO, and it’s gunning straight at the space dominated by EA Sports WRC and Dirt Rally 2.0 – with one bold promise: fully laser-scanned stages.

Key takeaways

• Early access on PC (Steam) starts November 13 with roughly 10 cars and 33 km of roads across Alsace and Wales.
• Stages and cars are laser-scanned, end to end – a first for mainstream rally sims if Kunos delivers at scale.
• Dynamic weather is in; snow isn’t there at launch. VR is planned by 1.0, not guaranteed day one of Early Access.
• Kunos aims for high-fidelity handling on wheels and better-than-usual controller support — we’ll see if that holds.

Breaking down the announcement

The reveal landed in Dortmund with zero leaks — rare in 2025. Marco Massarutto took the stage after new Fanatec hardware landed, then pulled the cover off a new IP. Kunos and Supernova say they’ve been building this quietly for four years, with the technical director Alexandre Lebertre explaining, “It was four long years, exhausting but exciting. Yes, the game will release in Early Access in November, with many new features added over the months like Kunos does with Assetto Corsa EVO.”

At launch, players get around a dozen cars spanning vintage to Rally2 and WRC-era machinery (think a 1972 Lancia to a 2000s Citroën Xsara, plus Group B flavors). Two locations — Alsace (asphalt) and Wales (gravel) — ship with four stages and variants. The studio claims these stages are fully laser-scanned “from the first to the last kilometer,” leveraging new scanning methods and AI-assisted processing. If that’s accurate, this could be a genuine differentiator: rally is all about camber, crown, micro-bumps, and how those details translate through force feedback.

There’s dynamic weather, but no snow yet. Cars can roll and force a reset, with punishing penalties — not the norm in rally games that often soften consequences. And while Kunos is known for sublime wheel feel, Lebertre also flagged improved pad handling: “This is something we tried to perfect compared to other rally games; we’re waiting for player feedback.” Controller-first players should keep an eye on that.

Why this matters now

The official WRC games have scale and licenses, but sim diehards have long wanted a physics-first alternative that doesn’t feel compromised by content churn. Kunos brings credibility here. The original Assetto Corsa defined a generation of mod-friendly sim racing; Competizione nailed GT3 handling and force feedback on a laser-focused scope. A Kunos take on rally — with the same obsessive surface modeling — could be exactly what the genre needs, especially in VR.

VR is the other big hook. It’s mentioned as a supported feature by full release (Kunos is targeting around 2026), which tracks with how the studio iterates: get the physics right, then scale up features. Hardcore rally in VR, with laser-accurate road geometry, is the kind of thing that makes seasoned sim racers rearrange their rigs.

The Early Access reality check

Let’s be clear: 33 km of roads and ~10 cars is a modest start. If you’re looking for a career mode and dozens of rallies in November, this isn’t it. Kunos says full release aims for 120 km, 10 stages with 35 variants across five international rallies, a career mode, a bigger garage, and VR. That’s promising, but it’s a runway — not a destination.

Main questions I have as a player: How good are the pace notes and co-driver cadence out of the box? How deep is the damage and repair model between stages? What’s the performance like on mid-range PCs when the weather turns and the road deforms? And the big one: will mod support be part of the plan? Assetto Corsa’s longevity came from modding; a rally sim with mod-ready tools would explode in popularity, but Kunos hasn’t said.

There’s also the controller question. Plenty of players don’t own a wheel, and recent rally games haven’t nailed pad feel consistently. Kunos saying they’ve focused on it is encouraging, but words are cheap — I want to see how a twitchy mid-2000s WRC car behaves on a DualSense or Xbox pad in the wet.

How it stacks up against WRC and Dirt

EA Sports WRC has breadth, real-world stages (reimagined), and a ton of cars. Dirt Rally 2.0 still has some of the best stage flow in the genre. Assetto Corsa Rally looks like it’s aiming for a different win condition: uncompromising surface accuracy and feel. If the laser scan claim survives contact with content scale — and the FFB translates every rut and crown — it could become the sim racer’s rally of choice, even if it never matches WRC’s license-driven variety.

The risk? Pacing. Four years in, we’re starting small. If updates are slow or the feature roadmap slips (VR, career, snow, more rallies), players will bounce back to the comfort food that is Dirt 2.0 and the breadth of WRC. Kunos’ track record with Competizione’s steady evolution gives me cautious confidence — but Early Access requires patience.

Looking ahead

On November 13, the question isn’t “Does it have every car?” It’s “Does it feel right?” If the Wales gravel communicates weight transfer, rut bite, and handbrake rotations through your wheel like Kunos at their best, the content can grow later. If controller handling lands and VR follows, we might finally have a true physics-first alternative in rally — the kind that pushes everyone else to raise their game.

TL;DR

Assetto Corsa Rally hits Steam Early Access on November 13 with a small but focused slice: two locations, laser-scanned stages, hardcore handling, and a roadmap toward VR and a full career by around 2026. If Kunos nails feel and follows through on updates, EA WRC just got real competition.