There’s a steady increase of appearance in racing games as of late, especially independent efforts from smaller developers. And this title by Australia-based MoJu Studios counts among them.
Asuka: The Ascent is a racing game where you play as Asuka Sakai, a college student from a farming village in the countryside of Japan. While she pursues her architecture degree, she’s also pursuing her passion for street racing.
Yes, there’s a plot in this racing game, to be delivered in manga form.
But there’s more to it. Looking at the trailer, Asuka: The Ascent features touge racing, where you drive the windy roads that goes up and down Japan’s hills and mountains. Very Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift-esque.
The cars are the stars of the game, with over 40 “JDM-inspired” cars (though they seem to not look legally distinct enough to be simply inspired), each with over 100 variants and with customisable specs.
The game will feature an ambitious tuning system where cars don’t upgrade linearly like most racing games do it. So tuning does feel like adjusting some knob settings here and there, as the term implies, as you’ll get to adjust various settings and balancing elements like heat, air flow and slip mechanics. The game even has its own physics model.
And if that all sounds overly complicated, hopefully the nice-looking aesthetic (they even got Eurobeat music playing in the trailer) and the story, and the 200 rivals each with lore, personality and driving style you can meet at a parking lot and challenge to a race-off (very Tokyo Xtreme Racer-esque) will reel you in to Asuka: The Ascent. And of course there’s a livery editor, like any decent racing game release in this decade should have.
Asuka: The Ascent has no release date yet but it’s coming to PC (Steam).