Under the Hood: A First Look at CSR2 from NaturalMotion

In 2012 NaturalMotion introduced CSR Racing, and with it, never-before-seen levels of visual fidelity and vehicle authenticity to the Racing genre on mobile. Now, three years and more than 130 million downloads later, we are proud to share with you today a first look at our brand new title in the CSR Racing franchise: CSR2. CSR Racing was born from our love of cars. Bringing our love of cars to the mobile screen was the team’s overarching goal during the development of the original CSR Racing and one that remains as we take the franchise to the next level withCSR2.

Developed out of our London East studio, the CSR2 team is comprised of highly talented individuals who have worked across some of the most well-known and respected racing game franchises including Forza, Need for Speed, DiRT and Burnout. Their passion for cars is as strong as their desire to create the most beautiful and most authentic racing game possible.

Authenticity in CSR2 comes down to fulfilling a simple dream. Many fantasize about owning a $2 million hyper car, but only a few will realize that in their lifetime. CSR2 lets players experience the thrill of attaining not just one, but a whole garage of the most desirable cars on the planet, and it feels as close as possible to the real thing. That’s because each car, down the stitching on the seats, is built without compromise to its real-world beauty, integrity and authenticity. Adding to the feeling that these cars are truly yours is the ability to configure each one just as if you were making those choices in a real-world showroom.

We’ve worked closely with our vehicle manufacturer partners – Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Pagani and more – not just on the exterior of the cars, but the interior as well. Each car has been meticulously created from manufacturer CAD data to give players the most authentic customization experience. Not only can you choose the official paint options for the body and brake calipers but even the real-world manufacturer and model trim options to truly make each car your own. Once specced, your new car doesn’t just appear in your garage, but is delivered to you, further enhancing the excitement of collecting the most incredible cars in the world.

To make this dream a reality, the team has built upon some of the world’s most advanced shading and lighting techniques to mimic how light reflects from cars in real life. For example, physically based shading is used to simulate the interactions that cars in your garage have with light sources to capture reality in the most stunning way possible. But while visuals and fidelity are important, we never make any technological advancement for technology sake alone. It is always a means to create a believable and immersive experience for the player.

And curating your collection of cars is only part of the CSR2 experience. In CSR Racing we introduced a new form of gameplay with the drag race, the purest form of car comparison. We’re staying true to this core gameplay, and we are very excited to tell you about how we have innovated on it in the near future.

In the coming weeks, CSR2 will enter its first of many soft launch phases. We will be listening closely to player feedback as we slowly ramp our testing across geographies and devices. We expect CSR2 to launch globally later this year on mobile devices worldwide.

Stay tuned for more, and thank you to the entire teams at NaturalMotion and Zynga that are working hard to bring our passion for cars to life in CSR2.

– Torsten Reil, CEO, NaturalMotion