When Marco Massarutto took the stage during the Sim Racing Expo 2025, many expected another round of apologies and new promises about the Assetto Corsa Evo roadmap. What few imagined was that we would end up seeing, even briefly, the very first real glimpse of the open world for Kunos Simulazioni’s new title.
And yes, what was shown left more questions than answers, but also one clear idea: this is not going to be just another “free roam” mode.
A Nürburg Without Barriers
The map being built by the Italian team stretches around Nürburg, recreating in detail roads, rural paths, and even real gas stations. The most striking element, and what defines the ambition of the project, is that “you will literally be able to drive anywhere.”
No invisible walls, no artificial boundaries.
If you want to leave the tarmac and head down a dirt road, go ahead. If you prefer to try your luck across open fields, you can do that too.
This philosophy of total freedom breaks away from the usual rigidity of the genre. Kunos doesn’t want to offer a pretty map to cruise through, but an environment that feels authentic, where every square meter reacts under the same physics system as a race track.
Realism at Full Scale
One of the most surprising details from the presentation was their insistence on keeping the real proportions of the roads. No widened highways like in Forza Horizon or “convenient” shortcuts to let three cars drive side by side.
Here, a single lane measures exactly what it does in real life: just enough for one car to fit without touching the white lines. Combined with the realistic physics that the series is known for, this promises a very different driving experience — more focused, more demanding, even at low speeds.
And on top of that, the world won’t be empty. The team confirmed that there will be AI traffic and NPCs to make the world feel alive, something rarely seen in a pure sim racing title.
The Demo
During the Expo, Kunos showcased a real-time demo running, according to them, on a laptop powered by an RTX 4060 GPU.
The video, admittedly of modest quality, showed different times of day, manual control over car headlights, and even the entry onto the Nordschleife’s back straight from a regular public road.
The lighting transitions, smooth performance, and the seamless connection between road and track suggest a natural integration between both worlds. This isn’t just a map that surrounds the circuit; it’s an ecosystem where the race track and its environment coexist.
That said, the gameplay is still very basic. It’s clear that the current focus is on terrain, materials, and optimization rather than activities or interactions. Even so, seeing the open world of Assetto Corsa Evo running live for the first time feels like a small milestone for sim racing enthusiasts.
A Risky but Promising Bet
Kunos insists that the goal is not to abandon their simulator identity, but to expand the concept of “simulation” into larger, real-world environments.
If they manage to preserve Evo’s realistic feel within this open world, we might be witnessing a new way to experience sim racing one where taking a lap around Nürburg doesn’t just mean lapping the circuit, but also cruising through the surrounding roads, stopping by a gas station, or simply watching the traffic go by.
Everything is still in an early phase, but after seeing this demo, it’s hard not to feel a little spark of excitement about what could come next.
Because if one thing is clear, in Assetto Corsa Evo the road doesn’t end at the finish line.
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See you on the track!
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