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I’ve got to be totally transparent with you: I’d never heard of the terribly named BeamNG.drive until today.
However, after seeing the response to the racer’s PS5 announcement trailer, I decided to do a bit of research.
It turns out this physics-based cult classic has been huge on PC for a decade, and squeezing it onto console is a remarkable achievement by the team.
Looking at how the news has been received, I expect this is going to be a surprisingly big release for Sony when it arrives this year, and a coup for the system overall.
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So, what makes this special? Well, it’s the physics, basically. There’s no scripting going on here, so every component of every vehicle is being tracked individually at up to 2kHz. This means that every aspect of every car is being re-evaluated 2,000 times every second.
In other words, when you crash, you’re never going to see the same collision twice. Everything is processed in real-time with dramatic precision, resulting in some of the gnarliest smashes ever rendered on screen.
I’d really encourage you to check out the trailer, because that sells it better than my words ever can. But one thing I’ll add here is the game really delves deep into the culture of crashes, so you can smash up buses and buggies as well as sports cars.
The game has a sandbox mode spread across several open world environments for you to explore and faff around in, but if you want something a little more structured, missions like time trials and police chases exist too.
I can’t imagine how difficult this game has been to port to the PS5, and dev Thomas Fischer alludes to that challenge on the PS Blog: “Bringing BeamNG.drive to consoles has been a complex undertaking for the team, and this milestone reflects the enormous effort that went into navigating countless technical challenges and meeting unique architectural demands.”
I really think its hard work is going to pay off here, because this game looks like it’s going to be pretty big.