We wrote previously on Rennsport, the upcoming racing sim poised to take on Assetto Corsa Competizione and maybe even iRacing. We subsequently wrote about ESL R1, the huge esports sim racing tournament that has a massive prize pool featuring some of the biggest names in the sport.
Delays
Initially, Rennsport should have been released as a closed beta in January, with the full release available in March. However, neither of these two events took place despite the ESL R1 tournament going ahead. Several rounds of ESL R1 have already taken place, showing that Rennsport is relatively capable and in a decent state of development. However, there's still no sign of the long-awaited closed beta.
Rennsport announced at the end of January 2023 that the Rennsport beta had been delayed without a revised date. Their official Discord shows this apology notice and a couple of announcements regarding ESL R1, but that's it. No further info on when we can expect the beta or any other information regarding a potential release date has been announced.
Improvements
Rennsport tweeted on 26 March 2023 that they're "making continuous improvements to enhance the curb structure and improve the traction on them" in preparation for Round 4 of ESL R1. Round 4 is already in the history books, with Round 5 scheduled for 10 April 2023. That tweet is a good sign that Rennsport is being worked on and improved, but the overall lack of communication from Rennsport isn't very reassuring.
Final thoughts
We think that Renssport jumped the gun when they announced the closed beta. In fact, the website still says that the "closed beta is about to kick off!". We appreciate their effort in making certain that ESL R1 has been a success so far and understand that they're working hard to ensure that we receive a racing sim that's really good when it's finally released.
What we don't like is the lack of communication and what appears to be a total disregard for managing timelines. For us, sim racing is a serious commitment of both time and money. We plan to commit long-term if we jump onto a new racing sim. Over the years, we've spent hundreds of dollars on iRacing and bought every DLC for ACC, including setup packages for both sims. However, we're not sure if Rennsport will be a racing sim that we're prepared to invest our time and money into based on what we've seen.
It seems like they're more focused on esports and ignored the sim racing community that assumed that Rennsport was for them, not just a select few esports drivers. Hopefully, we're wrong about this, and Rennsport is proven to be a solid alternative to iRacing and ACC, but based on what we've seen so far, we doubt it.
