Do you like racing games, tuning your own car from scratch, and especially drifting? Then you are in luck! ECC GAMES S.A.’s Drift21 is available in Early Access through Steam. Okay yes, it was already there since the start of May from this year. But now it has had some updates with new aspects so I couldn’t wait any longer and had to check it out to see how the game is coming along.
What does Drift21 offer already?
When you start playing Drift21 for the first time, the game will automatically ask you if you want to play the tutorial, which in my case was very much needed since I had no idea how it worked. During the tutorial, they will explain to you how the controls work and how to build your car. They will tell you where to buy your engine, how to put it in your car, and what other parts you need to think of when getting your car race-ready.
At the point of writing, there are currently 5 different cars available in a lot of different colors so no car has the same look! But that’s just the outside. You can change a lot of different things on the inside of the car as well. From the engine and the tires to the chairs and the look of your steering wheel.
Once you finally have your car set up the way you want it, you can take it out for a spin on one of the six available EBISU tracks in Japan. Here you can select different challenges to improve your riding style in order to become the best. You can choose between Free Ride where you can train your skill. Then you have Solo Run where it is your goal to score as many points as possible by drifting or racing at a certain speed. Finally, there is the Time Trail option, here you will need to finish a part of a track in a given amount of time while passing the point goal. I liked that there were various options available.
What’s missing?
To be honest, there isn’t missing much in the game. Everything works fine and you have a wide selection of parts to build your ‘dream’ car. What I hope to see in future patches is maybe something like a career cup so you have an actual goal or online leaderboards so you can compete against friends or other players from all over the world. And maybe a little bit more cars so there is even more variety than there is already.
Wrap up
Drift21 feels really good already and it isn’t even out of Early Access yet. Sadly, it is not stated when it will leave EA. If you like race/drift games, be sure to check this one out because it’s now sold at a discounted price because of Early Access and the devs have already said that the price will go up once it is fully released.
There are a lot of different things to do and built in the game so it won’t get boring after 10 minutes of playing so I say it’s a win-win!
