Yes, this time it is happening, for real, it seems – KartKraft is ready, set and coming to Steam Early Access next week on November 1, 9.00am PST!
Well, what happened?
After a promised release and a closed beta in 2016, KartKraft news became a a rarity. No one really new what was going. Until today, when the developer, Studio Black Delta, reported back on Facebook with a detailed post on the current ongoings, and in fact, there was quite a lot going on since 2016.
The karting sim, which started out as an inspiration from “Geoff Crammond’s GP2/3/4, Dave Kaemmer’s GPL, Gjon Camaj’s SCGT, and Stefano Casillo’s NetKar Namie”, is now over 1 millon lines of code strong, features a lot more detailed physics compared to 2016 and provides the necessary technical feature for easy expansion on a fortnightly or even weekly basis.
This is the current WIP. Compare it to 2016 WIP below.
The reasons for the delay mainly lie in the complexities of modelling such a simple looking, yet very complex model like a go-kart, shortcomings discovered in the 2016 closed beta and the developer (a team consisting of three coders and three designers) not being satisfied with the progress.
The release date has now been fixed for November 1. Mind you, this is still Steam Early Access, which on the one side means that there still might one or two issues, but also means that there is a lot more to come! All to be revealed in the Early Access roadmap which the developer is planning to make available within the coming days.
However, a very specific piece of info was revealed in the comments section of the Facebook post in question – open-source direct-drive wheels will be supported.
More news in the coming days. In the meantime, find the said Facebook post here.
Find some 2016 WIP impressions below!
