Dear reader,
Last week unleashed our first ever BREAKING series newsletter.
Any big news worthy of interrupting your day between the usual Tuesday email cycle will have BREAKING in big capital letters at the start, and dotted throughout to impress upon you the gravity of the emerging situation.
Last week we hit the big red button on the AC EVO story and the switchboard lit up!
I had plenty of replies from readers with their thoughts on the Assetto Corsa EVO news and had some great back-and-forth discussions over the weekend. I’ll be covering some of those at the bottom of this week’s edition. My main conclusion though, is that people really care about this franchise.
This week we dive into another giant of the sim racing world and their recently announced woes - NACON.
Grab yourself a coffee, maybe a biscuit, and have a read.
Tom Bunten, Traxion.gg
NACON in Trouble?
A dive into the range of news coming out from NACON and its various projects over the last few weeks - a tale of two halves! We also have a sneak peek at iRacing Arcade's career mode and get the latest news from the Rennsport Munich Summit 2026!
What is NACON?
NACON might not be the most visible brand in our world, not through a consumer-lens anyway. But the French giant, owned by Bigben Interactive, has fingers in many, many pies.
The pies…
KT Racing
Published games
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (by KT Racing)
MXGP 24 (by KT Racing)
Gear.Club Unlimited 3
Rennsport (Consoles)
Upcoming games
Endurance Motorsport Series (by KT Racing)
WRC 27 (Title & Studio TBC)
Licences held
WRC (World Rally Championship)
MXGP
Hardware
Revosim PURE Wheelbase: A 9Nm Direct Drive base
Revosim PURE Pedals: Modular Load Cell pedal sets
Revosim Ecosystem: Includes proprietary magnetic paddle shifters, a hybrid H-pattern/sequential shifter, and a Load Cell handbrake.
So What’s Happened?
In short: due to parent company, Bigben Interactive’s failing to pay “part of” a 43 million euro debt, NACON has stopped trading on the stock exchange.
Owing to NACON’s listing as a publicly traded company, the beleaguered company is required to publish certain commercial details to its investors.
Clearly this latest event has crossed the threshold of “details which must be disclosed to the public”.
NACON, in their recent press release, stated that they are “carefully studying the consequences of such a situation on its own activities and the financing associated with them.”
What next?
Who the hell knows!
But I hope they pull through. NACON presides over a veritable ecosystem of accomplished and aspiring brands, all of which contribute to the richness and variety of our market.
It’s no secret that NACON holds the WRC licence and are reportedly working on a new title for 2027. Any disruption to either this future rally title or NACON’s other titles will be a big blow for fans of the genre.
iRacing Arcade Shows Off Campus Builder
Releases 3rd of March people! (That’s March 3rd for out American friends…)
I’ve never wanted a game to be so good…
As an ardent, diligent, consummate Managing Director of dozens of theme parks (on Rollercoaster Tycoon), as well as a huge fan of racing games - this game speaks to me.
I’ve bleated on about this game during our Traxion Control podcasts and newsletters like an obsessive sheep. If the execution is lacking, I am ready for short sharp thrift - but I’m confident I’ll be okay.
Our Roving Reporter Reports on Rennsport
Tom Harrison-Lord, our Emperor-of-words, has recently returned from the Rennsport Munich Summit… in Munich… where he put his sleuthing skills to the test, scouring the room for clues as to what might be coming next to the title.
He was seemingly quite hungry when he writing up news of his discoveries:
“Traxion is currently in Munich to see what Rennsport has in store in 2026, and before the main course is served, a KTM-shaped aperitif has been spotted.”
Looking for a Discord Bot for your Sim Racing league?
We’ve all been there, you spend 2 hours making the race poster for Facebook, you agonise over the server settings, you’re ready to broadcast your race on YouTube and then only 6 drivers turn up.
Install the Grid Finder Discord bot for free to manage sign ups, send reminders and post your results in your discord server.
News Highlights This Week from Traxion.gg
Like sim racing? Have ears? Then listen to the new, weekly format of the Traxion Control Podcast!
Our AI Pledge
If you’ve ever read a Traxion.gg article, you’ll know that the writers over here all have very distinct voices and opinions. It’s this character and sound that I think makes Traxion special.
Human creation is becoming a rare commodity with which the media seem to trade less and less. But not at Traxion. We don’t use AI to write our articles on the website, and I pledge to you, that I will never use AI to write this newsletter.
Last week’s poll results
Last week’s poll was about this week’s headliner, NACON. They had used the term “sim-lite” to describe their not-quite-100%-realistic physics engine for Endurance Motorsport Series. I was a big fan of this summarisation of a “sweet spot” for your more casual sim racers, and clearly, you agreed too.
76.4% of the votes were in favour of this term - a silver line for NACON this week perhaps…
Community Spotlight
I’d like to showcase the best of our community’s projects and success stories each week. So if you have anything you’d like me to showcase here, please let me know by email: [email protected]
Thank you to everyone that wrote to me last week to discuss your thoughts on Assetto Corsa EVO’s news.
Jonathon A makes the argument that studios shouldn’t rely on unpaid labour from its community to make a successful game. A point I debated with Tom H-L at length in this week’s podcast.
Via email to [email protected]
Patrick L makes the point that whilst Marco Massarutto (co-founder at Kunos) cites rising licencing costs as one reason why creating sim racing titles is harder in 2026 than when the original Assetto Corsa was released, increased licencing costs logically affect only the number of cars/tracks released, not the number of features.
“If licensing costs were actually the issue, how was the solution not to scale back cars but instead to scale back content?”
Want to get involved with Traxion Control?
Got a question for our editorial team? Perhaps a point you’d like to make? Maybe even you’ve spotted a mistake in this issue?
Send your submissions by email to [email protected] and we’ll include them at the bottom of each edition.