Project Motor Racing Devs Admit They Let Players Down, Promise Major March Update

It takes a certain kind of honesty to look your playerbase in the eye and say: we got it wrong. That's essentially what Straight4 Studios has done this week, publishing a newsletter that doesn't dress things up or spin the narrative.

"We didn't hit the mark. Not on the stuff that mattered most. We let you down, and we let ourselves down."

Blunt words. And probably the right ones.

Project Motor Racing launched back in November 2025 to a pretty brutal reception, landing on Steam with a "Mostly Negative" rating as players flagged crashes, poor performance, and physics that weren't anywhere near where a serious sim should be. Less than two weeks after release, Straight4 announced it had laid off an undisclosed number of staff, citing a need to reduce the team after "exploring every possible alternative." Not a great start by any measure.

Since then, the studio has been grinding away at it. Seven patches deep now, addressing issues across physics, graphical optimisation, and the track cut system. Progress, yes. But as the studio itself admits, not enough.

The End of March Update

The newsletter makes clear something bigger is coming. A major overhaul across every department is promised, with the studio stating "the whole sim has been worked on and significantly improved." More detail is expected to trickle out throughout March before the update drops.

This has been referred to internally as a "2.0" patch, aimed at resetting most of the sim's foundational issues. Whether it actually delivers on that is the question worth asking. The studio's track record since launch shows genuine effort, but PMR's problems at release ran deep, and players who've already walked away won't come back on promises alone.

Still, the tone of the newsletter feels different from the usual corporate damage control. There's no "we hear you" fluff. No "exciting roadmap ahead." Just an acknowledgement that things went wrong, and a commitment to fix them.

What's Happened Since Launch

Alongside the newsletter, the most recent update added the 2013 Ford FG Falcon V8 Supercar as free DLC for all players, alongside a total overhaul of the GT4 class tyre model and a rebalanced Balance of Performance. License Points have also been integrated into PMR's Ranked Online mode.

The Falcon being free feels like a gesture of goodwill more than anything else. Straight4 described it as "a token of our appreciation to all players, old and new, for standing by us." Fair enough.

First Paid DLC Also Incoming

Alongside the big update, the first paid DLC for the game is set to arrive: a Japanese GT500 pack containing nine cars from Super GT, spanning both the current generation and the 2003 season grid. This makes PMR the only modern sim to officially include the most recent GT500 Super GT cars. That's genuinely worth noting for fans of Japanese motorsport.

A Japanese circuit is also expected to be part of the pack, with Fuji or Suzuka the likely candidates.

Whether the March update turns things around or not, Straight4 at least seems to understand what's at stake. PMR had real ambition behind it; whether the final product ends up matching that ambition is still very much an open question.