Development might have previously been happening in fits and starts, but with the Genk circuit and a full release coming for KartKraft, it seems like progress is being made more rapidly than ever.
The karting simulator was originally released by Black Delta into Steam Early Access in November 2018, and there have been plenty of updates since then. But after becoming part of the ever-expanding Motorsport Network empire, the dev team has grown from two people to ten. And than means the Genk Karting Circuit will be arriving in the next few days, along with regular content drops until a full release next year.
This also means the Early Access price will be ramping up to the full retail amount, so it’s not a bad time to invest ahead of the increases. The news was revealed in a video by Motorsport Games Australia Director of Studio, Zach Griffin.
KartKraft has had great visuals and handling for some time now. But the biggest weakness of the previously small team was that some key elements were taking some time to arrive, such as online multiplayer, which is still in private invite-only beta for the time being. Combine that with the lack of any structured single player and the fairly limited content releases, and you can see why it tended to appeal mainly to really enthusiastic karting fans but perhaps struggled with a wider audience.
And that’s a shame, because the experience of actually driving the karts is great. Braking, sliding etc all feel really nice, even if you’re limited to racing against the AI in one-off events or time trial laps.
So with the new track, regular content drops, the online multiplayer apparently arriving at some point, and a full release planned, it seems like KartKraft could be back on track again.
Incidentally, if you’re not familiar with the track, Karting Genk was constructured in 1983 in Belgium, and underwent a complete restyle in 2005 to meet FIA homologation. Along with hosting the Karting World Championship, it’s a regular on the European karting calendar, mixing sweeping corners with technical sections over the 1360 metre length of the Pro circuit.
KartKraft is available for the PC via Steam, here. And keep up with all the latest KartKraft news, updates and eSports here.
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