NASCAR 21: Ignition

NASCAR 21: Ignition is a racing video game simulating the 2021 and 2022 NASCAR Cup Series seasons. It was developed and published by Motorsport Games and was released on October 28, 2021, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows via Steam, with a further release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles on June 23, 2022.

The cover athletes are Cup drivers for each manufacturer: Chase Elliott for Chevrolet, Bubba Wallace for Toyota, and Ryan Blaney for Ford. Bill Elliott is on the cover of the Champions Edition version of the game, which released two days prior, and allows players to race as Bill himself (using a 2019-2021 Gen 6 NASCAR Cup Series Ford Mustang with his 1983 Melling paint scheme).

Development 
The game was built from the ground up, development on the game started around 2019 when Motorsport Games bought 704Games and received all of their assets. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4 using rFactor 2's physics engine.

Downloadable content 
On November 11, 2021, a downloadable content (DLC) package was released featuring Darlington Raceway themed throwbacks.  Cars from the 2021 Goodyear 400 throwback round were featured, and a second NASCAR Hall of Fame member, Darrell Waltrip, was added, which like Bill Elliott in the Champions Edition, players can race as him, using a 2018–2021 Gen 6 Chevrolet Camaro with his 1992 Southern 500 winner paint scheme.

The game was later updated on November 18, 2021, with patch v.1.25, with fixes and additional hardware support. On December 7, 2021 the game was updated to version 1.3.0 which added more wheel support and options while fixing some minor bugs. Three days later, a "Patriotic Pack" was released which included NASCAR legend Matt Kenseth in his 2003 championship paint scheme. January 25, 2022 saw the release of another patch, which included the addition of stages and other bug fixes. Two days later, the "Playoff Pack" was added with 80+ new schemes and NASCAR legend Bobby Labonte with his Interstate Batteries paint scheme. In February 2022, there was another update which saw the addition of a test mode for the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports 2022 Ford Mustang at Daytona International Speedway. In April 2022, Motorsport Games announced that there would be no new NASCAR title for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series, but instead a DLC for the 2022 NCS season, in which came out October 6.

Soundtrack
Track listing:
  "Back in the Saddle" - Aerosmith
  "BOOM" - X Ambassadors
 "Chasing Down a Good Time"- Randy Houser
 "Trouble's Coming" - Royal Blood
 "Cold As You" - Luke Combs
 "Keep Up" - Ryan Kinder and Robert Randolph
 "Love Race" - Machine Gun Kelly featuring Kellin Quinn
 "Natural" - Imagine Dragons
 "No Son Of Mine" - Foo Fighters
 "Sweet Home Alabama" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
 "Tied Down" - Larry Fleet
 "Circles" - Tim Dugger
 "Up In the Sky" - Milo le Miche
 "What We Came To Do" - Outskrts

Reception 

The PlayStation 4 version of NASCAR 21: Ignition received "mixed or average reviews" according to review aggregator Metacritic.

Player reception to NASCAR 21: Ignition however has been negative. Screen Rant said that the game was "chock full of bugs at launch".

After the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans virtual esports event, which was hosted on the rFactor 2 engine and criticized for its numerous technical issues, an anonymous Motorsport Games employee threatened to publicly leak the source code for NASCAR Heat 5, NASCAR 21: Ignition, KartKraft, and the unreleased IndyCar game unless unpaid wage payments were made.

Notes 
 "Champions Edition" released on October 26, 2021

References

External links
 

2021 video games
NASCAR video games
PlayStation 4 games
Xbox One games
Windows games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Racing video games
Split-screen multiplayer games
Video games developed in the United States
Video games set in the United States
Unreal Engine games
Motorsport Games games