I don’t think the state of racing games is poor, it’s just that they aren’t as popular as they once were. And that’s ok, I don’t think we need a bajilion racing games coming out every year if they’re gonna be shit. But to answer your question, I think right now, there aren’t a lot of new games coming out that are new IPs, they’re mostly a continuation of established franchises, and are mostly simulcade or full-on simulation racing games. I’ve been having tons of fun with Automobilista 2, for example.

But if you want to go a bit more in-depth:
On the arcade side, yeah, I suppose there aren’t a lot of recent releases (maybe The Art of Rally? I think there was an Outrun-style game too?). But you still have Wreckfest, GRIP, and Redout 2. Oh, and Trackmania.

In the simulcade side of things (think Forza and Gran Turismo), there’s Forza Horizon, Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo 7, WRC 24 (could also be put in the simulation racing, to be honest), and the F1 games, which are yearly releases as someone already mentioned.

As for simulation racing games, there’s Le Mans Ultimate, from the rFactor devs, and a new Assetto Corsa coming out. Automobilista 2 is getting updates pretty consistently, and iRacing is still going strong and getting new content. Oh, and BeamNG, which apparently turned into a full-fledged racing game?

You still have Forza, Forza Horizon, Gran Turismo, Wreckfest, F1, WRC, Need for Speed, Assetto Corsa, iRacing, MotoGP, Monster Energy Supercross, Hot Wheels Unleashed, NASCAR, and Lego 2k Drive just to name a few that have current or recent releases and are great and fill a wide variety of needs for racing.

Even Project Cars, The Crew, and Dirt had recent solid entries in the last decade that are still good today, and some obscure Saturday night local track style racing games like World of Outlaws, SRX, and various Tony Stewart dirt racing games have been released in the last 5-10 years.

There’s also remakes like Burnout happening.

There’s tons of racing games.

I lost interest when they became nothing but a shell for micro / macro transactions / “DLC”. The base game is already very expensive, but no, here’s some more overpriced cars and shit that you can’t afford either while you chase the dream of owning a full game with a complete car park.

I’d play NFSU in modern graphics! But apparently linear games are not allowed any more and it always has to be open world and come with seasons and DLCs and all that.

It feels like we used to be spoiled for choice and now there’s only a few select titles out. A lot of racing franchises got ruined by micro-transaction garbage. Project Cars decided to go in an entirely different direction with their latest installment and basically ruined the game. Most games no longer support split screen so if you want to race locally with friends you basically only have Mario Kart.

There’s still games though. Forza, Gran Truismo, F1 24, Asseto Corsa, Need For Speed… But even so it feels like something is missing. There’s not a lot to fill in the Wipeout niche, or the Burnout niche. I miss random things like Midtown Madness and Twisted Metal. I really want a good racing combat experience again.

I think a lot of studios aren’t willing to take chances and a good racer isn’t something you can make easily since people want good graphics and excellent racing physics.

Turns out vehicle simulations are hard. You either have games that play like a cabinet arcade or require a “simmer” setup (control cockpit) to really be good at.

And then there’s the work that goes into the level of detail. Example, Forza Horizon 5 doesn’t even have the underside of most cars modelled, to save on polys and performance, but there’s still a lot of little details that have to be modelled, textured, and sound recorded. This is even more important when a driving game goes into VR, because you will notice when something in the interior is missing or offmodel.

Also shoutout to Live For Speed, the active-since-Windows-XP open beta / early access mediumcore simulation that’s had VR support for a long while, and a release date that will probably coincide with Half Life 3.

OP just wanted some racing games recommendations imho 😁

I’m pretty salty at nintendo for abandoning F-Zero in particular. I need more high speed bumpercars racing in my life

There is also The Crew, Forza Motorsport, Forza Horizon as well as Gran Turismo to mention a few more that I have played. Plus a whole slew of hardcore F1 titles, Nascar titles and the Trackmania series.

There might be something in there that catches your attention. Could just be a case of these not surfacing in your algorithm to get noticed.

It’s weird that games nailed fun racing games back in the PS2/Xbox era. Between Burnout, Midnight Club, Need for Speed, all of them peaked. Then couldn’t repeat formula. Then on the PS3 they had Motorstorm. But really there hasn’t been a lot of fun racing games since.

I don’t think the racing game scene is poor.
There are many cool racing games if you look past AAA titles.

That being said, I don’t play them anymore. I pretty much exclusively play Assetto Corsa.

Racing in VR is such a great experience, I’d love to see more of it. Simulation and arcade style. But you’re right, we need one with a robust, slow paced progression system. I remember really enjoying unlocking everything in NFS Porsche Unleashed, going through the eras, starting slow but getting slowly faster. Then NFS Underground 2 came out and still stands alone as the best example of racing progression by a large margin. Then it’s like the gameplay design has been going further back in time since then. I am using the same simple progression mechanics in new racers that I used in Sega GT 2002, and they were old then.

As to why, it feels like they don’t have AAA budgets anymore. The high quality simulator games like the Dirt series have to spend their whole wad getting the physics and performance right, there’s not much left for anything else, so it’s just menus and a simple money system. That’s just my guess, it could just be they need to hire a couple RPG designers among the gear head ones.

I miss good arcade racers. I don’t remember the name of them, but I remember on the Xbox or 360 there were some really fun ones where you race around cities and nice landscapes. You could just jump in with friends and race. These days any racing game I try is like a job. Oh, you want to race? First drive to the garage, pick your car, talk to the mechanic, then spend 20 minutes driving to the race track. Mario Kart is about the only fun racing game I can think of, but I’d prefer something with real cars.

I’ve been playing Wreckfest for a few years. Great fun, perfect balance between arcade and realism. Multiplayer lobbies in that game are a blast, so chaotic 😃

I wish so many popular racing games weren‘t over 100 gb on average. Installing a couple on my 500 gb Deck is pain.