DMI collaborated with Monster Games, the developers of NASCAR Heat and NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona, in 2016 to create NASCAR Heat: Evolution. The game was received absolutely horribly. From the glitchy online play to the lack of private lobbies, to terrible physics, and a lackluster career mode. For the first NASCAR video game on the eighth console generation, this was a major letdown to many.
NASCAR ’15 was the last Eutechnyx game, once again on PS3 and XBOX 360. The new developers of the NASCAR video game series, Dusenberry Martin Racing, published this game based off of Eutechnyx’s version. DMI, as it was known at the time, took over the license from Eutechnyx as NASCAR ’15 was in development, so this game essentially was a placeholder until the next game could come out.
By 2014, the rest of the gaming world had moved on to the eighth console generation, but Eutechnyx and new publisher Deep Silver did not. NASCAR ’14 was released in 2014 exclusively on the PS3 and XBOX 360. A curious move, and, soon afterward, Eutechnyx was done with NASCAR games.
NASCAR: Red Line was the NASCAR’s first mobile phone game. The game is essentially a reworked NASCAR career mode that is optimized for mobile phones. It was definitely the product of its time. It was time for NASCAR to get into mobile gaming, and this game accomplished that. Even if it was pretty forgettable.
For the 2013 season, Eutechnyx for some reason elected not to release a console game. Instead, they reworked Inside Line into a PC game. It is quite literally, NASCAR The Game: Inside Line on PC with 2013 drivers instead of 2012 drivers. Definitely a strange decision by both Eutechnyx and Activision.
NASCAR The Game: Inside Line was the second game released by Eutechnyx, and it improved on NASCAR The Game: 2011 in a lot of ways. The graphics were improved along with a deeper career mode. Online play was also improved, but there were still plenty of bugs, just like NASCAR The Game: 2011.
This is the classic example of a game that has aged quite well. Metacritic has user scores for the game being only 4.0 for the XBOX 360 version and 5.0 for the PS3 version. The game is definitely far from a perfect one.
The career mode is improved, but it has nowhere near the depth that the EA NASCAR games had. The online play was improved, but it did show some glitches and flaws. The AI in the game in single player also has some strange behaviors as well.
What the game gets right, however, is its gameplay. The driving model and tire wear are about as realistic as any NASCAR has ever gotten. If running a race with tire wear and fuel consumption, you must manage your tires or sacrifice later in the run. There is even a fuel save button on the controller input for the game.
For all the hate this game got from the community back in the day, many now look back on it fondly. Especially the driving model after succeeding games struggled in that department.
Another Days of Thunder game was released in 2011. An arcade variant and a console variant were released. The PlayStation 3 version included licensed NASCAR drivers and tracks, which was strangely missing from the XBOX 360 version. This is curious especially because NASCAR games had previously been licensed on both systems. Regardless, few people bought this game, so very few even noticed.
After NASCAR The Game 2011, Eutechnyx released NASCAR Unleashed, which is an arcade-style racing game. The game is pretty comparable to the old NASCAR Rumble game on the PS1, and NASCAR Unleashed functions pretty similar to that. It does feature a few licensed tracks with multiple layouts, including Daytona, Chicagoland and Martinsville among others.
The next generation of NASCAR console video games fell to Eutechnyx as Activision took up publishing duties. NASCAR The Game: 2011 was very stripped down from its predecessors with a career mode that was just a single season and no Xfinity or Truck Series. The game also had issues at launch with a ton of glitches to its online play, but leagues like NORC and Full Throttle were able to find their footing eventually.
NASCAR’s run on EA Sports finished with a Mario Kart clone. NASCAR Kart Racing was released exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, and it was the first NASCAR console game to be released on a Nintendo home console since NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup. NASCAR Kart Racing actually features a teammate system, so working together with a teammate helps a player earn more boosts. Long story short, it’s a typical kart racer.