The Difference Between Assetto Corsa vs Assetto Corsa Competizione

Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC) are racing titles created by Kunos Simulazioni. Both titles heavily focus on realism and producing a simulation driving experience. Despite these similarities, both Assetto Corsa and ACC are incredibly different simulators.

In this guide, I’m going to share a detailed comparison of Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione and highlight all of the key differences. These could help you choose the best racing title to buy, as each game provides its own distinct gameplay and overall experience.

What’s the difference between Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione?

Some key differences exist between the original Assetto Corsa and the newer Assetto Corsa Competizione. Below is an overview of the most important differences.

Difference	Assetto Corsa	ACC
Style of racing	A wide variety of cars and events	GT racing only
Game engine	In-house engine	Unreal 4
Release date	2014	2018
Physics	Realistic driving simulator	Big focus on tyre physics
Tracks	18 official tracks	15 official tracks
Cars	A wide variety including road cars, race cars & F1 cars	GT2, GT3, GT4 and Cup cars only
Multiplayer	Online servers available	Competition servers
Mod support	Heavy focus on mod support	No mods available
Graphics	Graphics mods available	More realistic graphics thanks to Unreal Engine

What is Assetto Corsa?

The original Assetto Corsa game was released in December 2014 and was designed to be the most realistic driving simulator. It features a wide variety of cars, from road cars to historic cars, GTs, and Formula 1 cars.

This multi-discipline approach provides an experience similar to Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport, although with a much bigger emphasis on simulation physics.

Assetto Corsa launched across PC, Xbox, and PlayStation consoles and has a variety of DLC that includes official Ferrari and Porsche car packs. Being such an old title, Assetto Corsa isn’t the best-looking driving game currently; however, it places a huge emphasis on community-created mods.

These Assetto Corsa mods include complete overhauls to the graphics engine, realistic weather mods, and community-created cars and tracks.

Will Assetto Corsa Evo make the original Assetto Corsa redundant?

Assetto Corsa Evo is the direct sequel to Assetto Corsa and will be released officially in 2025. This new title is designed to surpass Assetto Corsa and build upon the foundations that the developers laid out with the original title. Depending on how much mod support AC Evo receives, the original Assetto Corsa may remain a popular title.

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What is Assetto Corsa Competizione?

Assetto Corsa Competizione was released in May 2019, a few years after the original Assetto Corsa game. While sharing the same name, Assetto Corsa Competizione is a vastly different sim racing title compared to the original.

ACC, as its commonly referred to by sim racers, is solely focused on GT racing. It launched with the entire GT World Challenge roster of cars, including all teams, drivers and tracks from the 2018 GT3 season. The experience is designed to be the most accurate recreation of GT racing available.

Since its launch, developers Kunos have released multiple DLC packs including new cars and tracks as well as entirely new disciplines. Buying Assetto Corsa Competizione today, along with all DLCs, grants you access to GT2, GT3, GT4 and cup cars, with a huge lineup of official tracks.

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Physics differences

Both games share the same ethos in terms of recreating realistic simulation-style driving gameplay, and this can be noticed when racing both games back to back. Assetto Corsa and ACC use different game engines, with the original game using an in-house game engine and ACC using Unreal Engine 4.

However, despite game engine differences, both titles use similar physics. The physics in Assetto Corsa were transferred to Unreal Engine 4 for ACC, with some key changes having to be made due to the different game engines.

Both games are similar in their desire to create the most simulation-focused driving experience possible. Assetto Corsa, despite being a ten-year-old game, still has some of the most believable and realistic driving physics of any racing game, and ACC has built upon this.

One notable difference in the physics is the focus on realistic tyre simulation in Assetto Corsa Competizione. This is one area of improvement compared to the original Assetto Corsa. Kunos even evolved the tyre physics in the v1.6 release of ACC by recreating the DHE 2020 tyre compound, which Pirelli developed for the 2020 GT World Challenge.

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Different game modes

Assetto Corsa was released with a fairly standard set of game modes for a racing title. You could enter quick races and time trial modes, and the career mode was familiar to those who have played Forza Motorsport. You progressed from the slower road cars to the more track-focused cars before competing in events with the Formula 1 cars.

Assetto Corsa Competizione is more of a GT driving simulator, and this is reflected in the game modes. Yes, you still have the ability to enter quick races and time trial sessions, however, you get accurate modes to the real-world GT World Challenge championship. These include Superpole as well as a new hot stint game mode that records your average lap time across multiple laps.

The career mode in ACC is much different to Assetto Corsa. You start your career by testing a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 car before signing a contract with a real-life GT World Challenge team. From there, you compete in the championship which is a recreation of the real-world championship structure. Much like games such as EA Sports F1 24, you can sign for different teams as you compete across multiple championships with the goal of winning the driver’s title.

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Multiplayer differences

When you take your racing online, there are differences in how Assetto Corsa and ACC handle multiplayer racing. Assetto Corsa offers a fairly standard multiplayer offering with private and open lobbies available, which include quick races and track day-style events.

With its emphasis on real-world GT racing, Assetto Corsa Competizione offers a more competitive focus to multiplayer racing. You can still compete in casual lobbies, or privately hosted sessions, but there is an in-built safety and competition rating system, not too dissimilar to iRacing’s rating system.

Assetto Corsa Competizione does have competitive lobbies and game modes available for multiplayer racing. However, these systems don’t provide as complex as an experience as iRacing does. To combat this, Low Fuel Motorsports was created as a platform that essentially recreates iRacing’s league and season structure for Assetto Corsa Competizione.

LFM is a third-party tool that is free to use. It offers structured competitive sim racing online across a range of different leagues. You can also progress through different license levels on Low Fuel Motorsport to compete against faster drivers.

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Are there mods for Assetto Corsa and ACC?

One of the main reasons why Assetto Corsa remains one of the most popular sim racing titles is due to its mod support. There are thousands of mods available for Assetto Corsa, with some mods completely redesigning specific elements of the game.

Community members have invested a lot of time in creating mods that overhaul elements such as the graphics to bring Assetto Corsa up to par with much newer sim racing titles. You can also install a mod to add realistic rain to Assetto Corsa, which was a feature that the developers didn’t include.

If you aren’t a fan of racing titles such as the EA Sports F1 series, you can download a range of cars and tracks to recreate real-world championships, such as the 2024 Formula 1 season. Many mods are accessible for free on platforms such as Overtake.gg (formerly Race Department), and there are some premium mods available.

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Tracks and cars included in both titles

Both Assetto Corsa and ACC focus on real-world cars and tracks, and both feature a wide selection of cars to choose from. Assetto Corsa Competizione focuses on GT racing, meaning there are no road cars included, however, the ACC car list includes many more GT2, GT3 and GT4 cars compared to Assetto Corsa.

Assetto Corsa car and track list

With Assetto Corsa aiming to be a complete driving simulator, the car list available at launch included various cars. There were popular real-world road cars such as the Abarth 595, the BMW M3 E92, the Ferrari 458, the Pagani Huayra and more.

In addition to these road cars, there was a range of track cars and race cars. These included track cars such as the Lotus 2-Eleven and Formula 1 cars, including the Ferrari SF15-T, which Sebastian Vettel drove. With such as huge variety of cars, most sim racers could find cars that they found enjoyable to drive.

Assetto Corsa also included many real-world tracks, including classic circuits such as Monza, Mugello, Zandvoort, and Laguna Seca, as well as dedicated drift and drag circuits.

ACC car and track list

ACC focuses all of its energy on GT and cup racing, allowing it to create the most realistic GT2, GT3 and GT4 cars available in any racing sim. At launch, the entire 2018 GT World Challenge series was represented with all cars, teams and drivers.

Since its launch, Assetto Corsa Competizione has been updated each year with up-to-date liveries, teams, drivers and cars. The ACC car list now comprises of all GT3 cars from the past five GT World Challenge series, along with a selection of GT2, GT4 and cup cars.

As well as releasing yearly car and livery updates, Kunos has also released track packs each year to add real-world tracks that are visited by various GT championships.

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Final thoughts

Both Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione offer incredibly realistic driving simulations. There are core similarities such as the physics and style of gameplay. However, the core difference remains the distinction between GT racing and a wider car variety.

With all of the mods available, Assetto Corsa remains one of the very best sim racing titles available. It offers a variety of cars, tracks and disciplines that aren’t often found in most racing games. For those looking for a more motorsport-focused racing title, Assetto Corsa Competizione provides an experience like non other by focusing entirely on GT racing.

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