NASCAR 21: Ignition is the newest racing simulator from developer and publisher Motorsports Games, which has taken the reins from former partner 704Games, whom they collaborated with for the NASCAR Heat series. With Motorsports Games announcing that the game would leave the Unity Engine behind in favor of the Unreal Engine, a unique opportunity for NASCAR 21: Ignition to start fresh and build the NASCAR experience in a positive new direction presents itself. While NASCAR 21: Ignition nails the driving elements and visual feel of the NASCAR experience, however, it offers a limited amount of content and struggles with some annoying bugs.
Driving in NASCAR 21: Ignition is very responsive and easy to pick up, letting newcomers jump into the action without having to worry about a steep learning curve. More experienced NASCAR fans can choose from a host of options sliders to up the difficulty and provide more realism to the game, letting players of all skill levels enjoy the game in their own personal way.
All of the racing action looks and sounds superb due to NASCAR 21: Ignition moving to the Unreal Engine this year. Tracks are accurately represented, attention to detail and overall layout of featured cars look great, and the roar of the engine provides excellent audio for the virtual NASCAR experience. It's not the prettiest game by any means, but it's a good starting point for Motorsports Games to build off of in subsequent entries, setting up a bright visual future for the series while holding its own.
When booting up the game, players are presented with a few different modes to jump into. The Career Mode common to sports games is where a majority of the content is found, allowing players to select a NASCAR team to sign with and move right into racing in the quest for a championship. Race Now is exactly how it sounds, letting players choose a driver, track, and adjust race conditions, before jumping right into the action. Online Races is the final playable mode and should be intriguing for those looking to test their driving prowess against players around the globe, but Screen Rant wasn't able to dwell deep into this mode due to a lack of players on the servers during the review period.
While all three of these modes (and the Paint Booth feature that allows players to create their own race car for Online Races) offer a decent amount of content to keep players engaged, NASCAR 21 Ignition does feel a bit more stripped down in comparison than previous entries. Career mode doesn’t include the fun dirt racing events that precluded a player's rise to NASCAR stardom, nor do the Challenge modes from NASCAR Heat 5 make an appearance in this game. It makes sense that things are pared back due to the shift in engine and primary developers, with nailing the look and gameplay mechanics an obvious focal point. For true NASCAR fans looking to get their racing fix, the content featured in NASCAR 21: Ignition should mostly satisfy, but it doesn't really justify a $60 price tag when looking at it as a whole.
It also doesn't help that NASCAR 21: Ignition is chock full of bugs at launch, making the racing experience more frustrating than not. There are instances where a race will be just about to start and cars on the track freeze, even though the wheels continue to spin and engine sounds rumble on. Sometimes the game doesn't even let players get out of the garage or pits, freezing when the driver is handing the data pad back to his crew chief or shifting into a poorly textured replication of the internal rear of the car. The game even freezes up in the menus sometimes when selecting what mode to play, and every instance where this happens calls for a complete restart of the game. Motorsports Games has acknowledged these problems and will release patches to fix performance, but it truly detracts from the experience when it's a coin flip whether you even make it to the track.
It's hard to recommend NASCAR 21: Ignition in its current state, and it will probably play best a little bit down the road after Motorsports Games gets all of the technical issues worked out. There definitely are some good elements to make for a fun experience, and when the game cooperates enough to allow players to experience them, the driving and overall presentation of a NASCAR race are enjoyable. While there's potential to be a good game, the frustrating amount of bugs combined with a scaled-back amount of content makes NASCAR 21: Ignition a disappointing racing simulator in its current state, with a caveat that future patches may help improve its standing somewhat.
NASCAR 21: Ignition fully releases on October 28, 2021 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. A PS4 digital code was provided to Screen Rant by MotorSports Games and played on PS5 for the purpose of this review.