Racing Master enters another CBT

Codemasters and Netease games seem to be struggling to optimize their upcoming racing game “Racing Master” to appeal to a larger audience. The game enters third (or fourth?) closed beta test so far, and fluidity of the gameplay is still a problem for majority of players. Graphics are good, no question about it, licensed cars are here, tracks are almost done and there is plenty of content available. So what’s the problem?

Racing Master release date?

The developers are not telling. I asked, I got no response (again), so I am going to say what I think it is going to happen, and that is another delay. The game will probably miss the announced 2022 release altogether. Of course, this is my personal opinion and I might be wrong, but from what I saw in the current beta test, things are not quite there yet.

First of all, Racing Master uses Unreal Engine 4, and there is no other way of saying this, it looks gorgeous. The details are completely bonkers, different cameras, cockpit view, insanely detailed car models and tracks – it’s all there. But that comes at a huge cost. I couldn’t get a stutter-free fluid gameplay no matter the in-game details selected. It appears to me that the game has an asset loading problem and huge memory leaks. 3D rendering is not dropping the framerates, the constant micro-loadings and memory usage is. This must be fixed if Racing Master hopes to accomplish anything more than being a glorified tech demo.

The last time I checked the description on the Play Store (it’s gone now), it stated the game needs Snapdragon 855 (or equivalent) SoC and 4 GB of RAM, which is nonsense as my SD 855 and 6 GB of RAM couldn’t provide stable FPS to play the game competitively. Yes, it’s “playable”, but not in a way it should be.

Alright, performance problems aside, the gameplay didn’t change much since the previous beta test in August. Couple of new cars were added alongside new tracks and tweaks to the existing ones. However, I still refuse to believe that this is a “simulation” racing game, as the developers claim. The power drifting, overtakes and collisions just “scream” arcade to me. Either way, it’s fun and customization of your collection goes a long way with detailed previews and vast selection of upgrades, anywhere from new wipers to engine swaps.

The main focus of the gameplay revolves around multiplayer racing with 8 players in total. Find the best car for you, race again 7 other drivers with cars in the same class, win and enjoy your rewards. Collect enough diamonds and try summoning a new car, who knows the next spin might be a McLaren 570s.

Download

Racing Master keeps appearing and disappearing from the Play Store as new versions come and go, so no link for now. If you wish, you can try side-loading the APK file available on APK Pure, but there are no guarantees it will work. You can, however, pre-register for the game at the official web-site, and hope to get an invitation for the next CBT.

FYI, you will need whopping 8 Gigabytes of storage space, and the game even rewards you with in-game gold if you download all the assets *facepalm*.

Dejan B. – “Racing Master enters another CBT”