BeamNG.drive just had a graphics overhaul so we can finally watch a family hatchback navigate a speedbump at 100mph with dynamic ambient lighting

BeamNG.drive, a mainstay of our list of the best racing games thanks to its dedication to being a vehicular sandbox for soft-body crash-damage enthusiasts, as well as its PvP and modability, just had its biggest update. The patch includes "massive graphics changes", which means shadows should be more stable, there's HDR output support on Vulkan and Direct3D 12, physically correct light attenuation, and dynamic ambient lighting.

My favorite detail is that, in addition to volumetric clouds, BeamNG.drive now has an accurate night sky. "The sky is based on real astronomical values," the patch notes say, "including Milky Way rendering and a constellation database, fully synchronized with latitude, longitude, date, and time of day."

This is the kind of dedicated attention to detail you want when you're slamming cars into fences at several hundred miles per hour to see which ones survive. (The answer is none of them. Fences always win.)

BeamNG.drive's infamously clunky UI has been overhauled too, with a redesigned pause menu, improved gamepad functionality, and a revamped UI for replays. It's more moddable than the previous UI too, which is good news because I suspect it's still going to feel pretty off-putting to new players.

Other additions include an overhauled photo mode, more realistic vehicle lights, a new aerodynamic physics system, various map improvements, memory optimization, updated ambient audio, an all-gravel Rally Loop, a freeroam tutorial, and a new vehicle: the Cherrier Ardente, "a solid contender for the best-looking vehicle we've ever done, with a sculpted contemporary exterior and a sporty, driver-focused interior."

This update brings BeamNG.drive up to version 0.39. It's been in early access for 11 years now, and is so old it came up through Steam Greenlight. There's a PS5 version currently in the works, though "future PC updates" are promised as well.

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.