HD RACING - CAREER
Fight your way up through the echelons of motorsport and rise to dominate your chosen discipline; with over 180 cars and five motorsport disciplines to choose from, your career choices have never been more varied.
STARTING YOUR JOURNEY
Some will race to experience the exquisite handling of many of the world’s greatest cars at their limits.
Others will want to chase the dream of motorsport glory.
Simulated epic cars and legendary tracks along with four seasons of weather and multiple surface types—it also simulates the very career paths and ladders real-world drivers must ascend on their way to ultimate success.
The five disciplines of motorsport are open-wheels, GT, prototypes, rallycross, and touring cars. Each will challenge you in their own unique, distinctive way.
In the real-world of motorsports, it is common for champion drivers to swap one discipline for another; a seven time world champion may get his first big break in endurance cars; a five time world champion may get his big break racing touring cars; a champion in open-wheels may swap one series on one continent for an open-wheel series on another continent; and sometimes, too, a world champion driver will stun the world and go rallycross driving on dirt.
Drivers, be they champions or rookies, will often flitter from one discipline to another. That aspect has been simulated to offer you a faithful version of what it’s like to embark on an actual motorsport career.
CAREER PATH
You’ll have plenty of paths to focus on, follow one discipline throughout your career and become a multiple champion, or become an adaptable driver chasing titles in multiple disciplines. Rise to become an open-wheel champion, fight your way to becoming a legendary endurance driver, white-knuckle your way to becoming a fearless warrior on the world’s touring cars scene, powerslide you way to becoming a cut-throat artist on dirt and gravel, finesse your way to becoming a GT racing icon, or conquer them all on your way to motor racing immortality—whatever your motorsport dream, your destiny is in your hands.
ZERO TO HERO
DEFENDING CHAMP
TRIPLE CROWN
Improving on the contract offer system you will now also have more choice in which team you want to sign up with. The way this works is as follows: you first choose the car you want to drive in a specific series that attracts your interest, and you will then be presented with the teams that have open seats in that series for the car of your choice.
Select the team that you'd like to drive for, review the terms of the contract, and sign up. Or, if you change your mind, you can simply go back to the vehicle options, and choose a different car and team.
Each season in your career will also present you with the option to run a full calendar for that series, or to run a shortened calendar. Additionally, you can also scale the duration of each race in the series. This allows you to experience the life of a motorsport driver, even if you don't have the time to devote to a full-scale, all-race career campaign.
The core of your career is the Tier system which has been carefully created to model that of a real-world motorsport driver.
Here’s how that works.
Once you successfully complete a Motorsport in Tier 6 (the lowest Tier that represent the usual starting point in any driver’s career) such as Karts, Ginetta Juniors, or Formula Rookie, you will move up the ladder to Tier 5. At this point, you can decide which series and car you’d like to drive through that Tier, and sign up a contract for a team. Also a consideration here will be the type of discipline of motorsport you want to enter.
You can thus choose to follow one motorsport discipline all the way from Tier 6 to Tier 1 (GT cars, for instance), or you can choose to jump between disciplines throughout your career and the six Tiers.
If you decide you want to hop through the five motorsport disciplines, you can, as an example, follow this path: Begin with Karts in Tier 6. Achieve the results required to step up to Tier 5, and you can then choose to run touring cars in the Clio Cup. Complete the three series in Tier 5 in the Clio Cup car, and Tier 4 becomes available; at that point, you can jump into classic Prototypes. Once you complete all the series in that, you can choose GTs in Tier 3, and then slip your way through rallycross European Championships in Tier 2, and IndyCars in Tier 1.
Or you can simply choose to run prototypes, or open-wheels, or any discipline all the way through from Tier 5 to Tier 1.
The goal is motorsport glory; how you get there is up to you.
Additionally, if you decide that beginning in grassroots motorsports is not your thing, you can choose to begin in Tier 3. In Project CARS 2, only Tier 2 and Tier 1 are “locked”, which means you need to progress into them. Tiers 6, 5, 4, and 3 are open from the start, and you can choose to freely drop into your career in any of these Tiers.
THE MANUFACTURER DRIVES
As you progress through your career (and rise through the Tiers), 14 of the world’s most iconic auto manufacturers—Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, and so on—will begin to take notice of your talents. By racing in cars of one of these manufacturers and thereby accumulating race distance in them, you will start earning “Affinity” towards that manufacturer.
Once you've earned enough affinity, you will become a Brand Advocate for the manufacturer, and they will invite you to take part in a Proving Grounds event where you will need to demonstrate that you have what it takes to represent the automaker’s brand as a Factory Driver. The reason for this is simple—you may have driven the miles in their car, but that doesn’t mean you’ve been winning in their cars.
When you successfully complete the Proving Grounds event, you will be tagged as a Factory Driver. You then get the opportunity to compete in a series of Manufacturer Drives, driving a selection of their cars. Successful completion of these will result in unlocking a car for that manufacturer.
When you successfully complete the Proving Grounds event, you will be tagged as a Brand Advocate. You then get the job as Factory Driver, and once you've successfully completed the factory drive tour, you will be given the Factory Drive Tour achievement.
Each of these events will see you competing over a race weekend in some of the manufacturers most iconic cars, and successful completion of each will lead to the unlocking of the next challenge. The events themselves—featuring cars that you wouldn't typically drive in your core career—are themed to represent classes that the manufacturer is known for. As an example, with Nissan you have a Historic Touring event, a Group C prototype event, and a modern GT3 race.
Complete them all to get a taste for what each of these 14 world-renowned manufacturers have to offer in terms of class and, of course, car.
INVITATIONAL EVENTS
Your achievements through your career will unlock special invitational events which can be entered away from the normal career flow. These events are voluntary, and can be entered whenever you want, and will represent the variety of motorsport categories and car classes available in Project CARS 2 with a selection of events featuring cars that you wouldn't be able to drive in your core career.
You will also be racing for trophies, achieve Lifetime Goals, and get Accolades as you progress through your career.
CAREER SETTINGS
You can modify the race experience to cater for your individual requirements. For instance, you can alter the opponent skill level by using a slider that will determine the base AI skill level. You can also allow or disallow restarts. If you choose to disallow them, you will have to be extra cautious in order not to damage or even wreck your car because, as in the real-world, one mistake can cost you the championship.
Remember, If you fail at any stage during the series of events that make up a Tier, you will have to start from the beginning; this simulates both the rush and the stress of a real driver—suddenly, that dive up the inside for the lead on the last lap is a risk that you may not want to take, when settling for second and points will aid you in your quest to win the championship.
Between rounds, you will also be able to tinker with the settings, giving you even more power to tailor the game to your needs. At the start of every race weekend, for instance, you will be offered the opportunity to determine its overall length. You can enable or disable practice and qualifying sessions independently, while also modifying all lengths of races.
Consider enabling all sessions, just in case you need to practice in weather you’re unaccustomed such as snow, rain, or a drying line, because you can always hit skip once you’re in a session. If you choose not to run in the qualifying event, you will always start the race at the back of the grid.
The career mode has been created to be the most accurate representation of a driver’s career path in the real world while tailored to meet your individual needs and desires.
Your goal is to write your name in the pantheon of motorsport legends—how you get there is up to you.
