There’s no getting around it, 2024 has been a steadier year when it comes to the racing genre. We’ve had fewer new additions to the industry, and of what has debuted, only a handful of more premium-feeling additions. In many ways, 2024 has been a bigger year for indie racing than for AA or AAA, something that 2025 will almost immediately try to rectify when the impressive Assetto Corsa Evo makes its appearance in January. Still, we’re not talking about the future today, we’re looking at the past, and with that in mind, here are our top five racing games of 2024.
5. Expeditions: a Mud Runner game
It’s no secret that many video games don’t really come close to properly simulating car physics, especially when going off-road. The Snowrunner and MudRunner series have always tried to change that, something it has achieved once again with Expeditions: A MudRunner Game. This simulated driving experience is all about conquering nature using a variety of specialized vehicles and powerful tools. It’s not about racing from point A to point B, it’s about completing the task while simultaneously causing as little damage to your car as possible, and in any case, it’s a good example of how difficult it can be to drive off the beaten path.
4. Golden lap
While there are many reasons to enjoy the complexity and challenges found in Frontier Developments’ F1 Manager series, but sometimes you just want to embrace simpler times and enjoy them. That’s where Golden Lap comes in, as the talented creators of Art of Rally have come up with a simplistic open-wheel racing simulator that seeks to tap into the golden age of Formula One. With hilarious parody teams and drivers, a progression and development suite that lets you improve a race-by-race and season-by-season format, and rudimentary but stunning art direction, this is a fantastic indie alternative for those who want to simulate F1 action.
3. New star GP
You will probably start to see a theme with the racing choices for 2024, and that seems to be because Formula One is more popular than ever. The open-wheel racing scene has also led to the creation of indie racer New Star GP, where this is an exciting arcade experience that captures the challenge and complexity of Formula racing and then combines it with amazing retro graphics that look like they belong in an arcade cabinet built in the 1980s. It really is a compelling example of how realistic visuals and accurate physics models are not always necessary to have fun in racing titles, as this game will remain a staple of our racing collection for many months and probably years to come.
2. F1 manager 2024
There was always going to be one of the two major official Formula One games on this list, simply because of the lack of competitors in 2024. We chose Frontier Developments’ simulation sequel ‘ for this main reason that this game felt like a serious step forward in an already complex and detailed series. Sure, there are still graphical quirks and oddities that plague the experience, but the ability to completely reassemble your own team, the broader and more authentic staff mentality, better AI, additional exciting renderings and also the risk of mechanical failures in races made this installment more gripping, frustrating and exciting than all of its predecessors.
1. Rennsport
Yes, we’re cheating a bit here, because Rennsport isn’t even in Early Access yet, but you can download the game and play it completely free, so that’s good enough for us. Teyon and the Competition Company ‘s Rennsport still needs a lot of work before it can be classified in the same breath with the sim-racing greats, but what has already been presented is a clear example of what this game can eventually become. Sharp and detailed visuals mixed with a powerful physics engine, a collection of real tracks to race on, exciting cars to get behind the wheel and a variety of game modes to compete against friends and some of the best sim racers in the world. Rennsport has a bright future ahead of it, and this pre-Early Access version is enough for us to put it on our Best Racing Games -list.