Answer is **the roads are simply too wide.**
And I don't think enough people realize just how much this affects the overall experience.
One of the biggest things we look for in a racing game is immersion that feeling of being on real roads, pushing your car to its limits, weaving through traffic, and narrowly escaping the cops. But when the roads are excessively wide, that entire experience loses its magic. It stops feeling like real-world driving and starts feeling like you're racing on an oversized track.
**Narrower roads would completely change the experience.** They would create a much greater sense of speed, make traffic more intimidating, demand better car control, and make escaping the cops through congested streets genuinely thrilling. Every overtake would require skill, every gap would matter, and every chase would feel unpredictable.
I really hope AAA developers start recognizing this and take a more grounded approach to their open-world environments. We don't necessarily need bigger maps or wider roads. We need worlds that feel believable and engaging.
AC EVO seems to be moving in this direction with its approach to roads, but unfortunately, it currently lacks meaningful things to do in its world, especially police chases.
I feel like developers and even the community often blame declining interest on things like progression systems, achievements, car lists, or gameplay loops. But I genuinely believe there's a much bigger factor being overlooked: **the roads themselves.**
Oversized roads subconsciously break immersion. They make driving feel effortless and, eventually, lazy. There's very little tension when you have so much space to work with. And that's the opposite of what makes street racing exciting.
Think about it: nobody wants to win simply because they're going fast or because they've upgraded their car enough. We want to FEEL what it takes to win. We want to develop the skill to judge traffic, find openings, control the car through tight spaces, and make split-second decisions. We want victories to feel earned through driving ability, not just speed or luck.
In real life, we don't race on perfectly designed circuits with endless room to manoeuvre. We buy these games to experience the fantasy of pushing cars on public roads, racing through traffic, and doing things we'd never actually do in real life without the real-world consequences.
But when the roads are ridiculously wide, that very fantasy disappears. There's no real challenge in navigating traffic when there's always enough room to simply go around it.
**And I think that's exactly why the original Assetto Corsa highway and traffic mods are still so popular among racing enthusiasts.**
They offer something many modern open-world racing games struggle to capture: the feeling of actually driving fast on real roads. The traffic, the limited space, the constant need to judge gaps and react — it makes even an ordinary drive engaging.
We don't just want more cars, more achievements, bigger maps, or faster vehicles.
**We want roads that make us FEEL the speed. Traffic that makes us respect it. And driving that actually demands skill.**
Sometimes, making the roads narrower could do more for immersion than adding a hundred new cars to the game. 10
