iRacing Arcade

Introduction

iRacing Arcade is a third-person arcade racer from the team behind Circuit Superstars, licensing the iRacing brand across a small roster of cars and real-world-inspired tracks, with a base-building career mode layered on top. Developed by Original Fire Games and published by iRacing, it launched on Steam on 3 March 2026 at NZ$35.99. Its 746 English-language reviews sit at 72% positive, Mostly Positive. Given the scale of that corpus, this review read the 100 most-helpful negative reviews of the 210 total, alongside a wide sample of the positive side.

Genuinely fun driving, praised on both sides

The core handling draws real, specific praise consistently across this sample. "The presentation is nice, and the handling is fun," reads the sample's most-upvoted negative review, before pivoting to its actual complaints. A positive reviewer puts it more directly: "The driving model is fun, the spirit of racing is captured wonderfully, systems such as car damage, tire and fuel wear, and pitting are all in place." Even a reviewer frustrated enough to call the experience "mid" concedes: "the cars are fun to drive... game is fun to look at."

A striking, widely repeated multiplayer gap

What dominates the negative sample is a single, specific complaint repeated with real consistency. "No pick up and play multiplayer, only joining via a lobby code, so no public lobbies for hopping into," reads that same top review. "No online Multiplayer, waste of time. Coded lobbies only, what a joke," reads another, independently. A third reviewer frames the irony directly: "iRacing is the most competitive car simulator where you only race other humans and we receive a no-matchmaking arcade game? come on guys, of course you can do better." That's a specific, brand-relevant gap rather than a generic multiplayer complaint.

Thin content, and a real gap in developer support

A second, connected complaint concerns scope. "Only 8 cars, 6 of which are generic unlicensed models," reads the top review, a count echoed independently across dozens of others in this sample. "With only 8 cars and a dozen maps, after about 5 hours you've almost seen everything," reads another. Several reviewers connect this directly to the developer's history: "Like all Original Fire Games it feels incomplete, but yet it has a good core... They abandoned two of their other games to make an incomplete third game," reads one, referencing the studio's earlier titles Karting Superstars and Circuit Superstars. This review checked the developer's own Steam news feed directly and found the last patch dated 31 March 2026 — over four months before this review, a real and checkable gap consistent with, though not proof of, the pattern reviewers describe.

Verdict

iRacing Arcade has a genuinely satisfying core driving model that this review's full sample confirms lands even with critical players. But the absence of public multiplayer lobbies is a specific, brand-relevant gap that dominates this review's negative sample, compounded by thin content and a real, independently confirmed four-month gap since the game's last patch. Worth a wait for a sale or a content update, not a full-price day-one buy.