Relaunched Formula Fusion to get name change to 'PACER'-June release

[blackwiggle]

From what I'm reading at the Formula Fusion discussion pages on the Steam boards, it has been decided that for the re-release of what up till now has been known as Formula Fusion, will get a name change to 'PACER'

Where that name came from I don't know [I'm suspecting the new publishers had a strong saying in it's choice ]

The name change I suspect was to give the re-released game the best start it could have, without all the negative baggage that the name Formula Fusion has attached to it over it's overly long and troubled existence.[And a lot of that negative stuff got posted at this forum-which had been noticed by R8, hence the reason they officially stopped posting about updates]

Already Formula Fusion videos have been taken down from R8's YouTube channel and would suspect new ones will appear to replace them, also the official Formula Fusion website has been removed.

There are reportedly big changes to the last release, what those changes are, I have only had hints on.

But I must admit, the new title does worryingly make me think what was originally planned to be a serious AG racing game, seems to be heading to more like 'Pacer'- The Arcade Racer ....I just don't know.

We shall see what we shall see...... Slated release date for 'PACER' or whatever it does eventually get called, is now for June.

[Dawn_Fire_]

I remember funding this a very, very long time ago and waiting patiently....very patiently for the console release or any real solid update. I kind of gave up on it, but any news would be nice, maybe a re-brand will do it some good. I certainly hope so. From what i've seen it looks pretty good. Here's hoping for a good release and hopefully some solid communication.

[multibodydynamics]

I remember some negative comments when the kickstarter was running. One from myself, and I'm afraid that one got them a bit upset. I just thought that the console releases had such a low priority on their kickstarter. I found that odd. Now here we are 4 years later and we still want to play the game so that is good I guess. I hope it finally comes to PS4, that I will get my free download according to the kickstarter pledge and that the game turns into a huge success with lots of online players!

[blackwiggle]

There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes with personnel changes at the beginning, this was when they had closed the original TPP and opened the kickstarter campaign.
The resulting mess from that was many people had signed up for both, and at different levels, it just became a mess of people not getting codes, what codes they were entitled to etc, with nobody really knowing WTF was going on......not the ideal start when you have to delegate somebody from such a small team to try and sort the mess out......I still don't know if it did get sorted fully for some people.

Then you have had the lack of information from R8 on all platforms they had originally been communicating on, that was, and still is to a large extent, a bone of contention.
Their own reporting forum for the TPP was a case in point, as the person allocated to run it was trying to sort out the mess I mentioned above instead, result was deathly silence for the most part, so people just slowly gave up reporting as it was a one way street.
The reporting forum was eventually shutdown with nothing more said about it.

There was another factor to the stalling of the console versions release, and it something a lot of people don't know that went down.

Little did we know that Sony ExDev had commissioned the remastering of HD/FURY/2048 to become the Omega Pack, if the thought of ex Studio Liverpool people making a 'Spiritual successor to Wipeout' was the spur needed to start that project, one can only guess,[I suspect it was commissioned more as a showcase VR title, as Sony have always tended to use Wipeout to highlight any new tech development] but the end result was that R8 were dicked around by Sony ExDev and not given a PS4 development kit till a month after Omegas release.

Since it seemed rather a waste of resources only developing for the Xbox and PC only, rather than also for the PS4, it was decided it was better to concentrate solely on the PC version, get that as good as possible, then get a publisher for the console versions, then let them port it over [which is what I have been told is what publishers prefer to do ]

Due to the false starts,the mess with Kickstarter codes etc, and the eventual need to release a game on Steam that was less than finished just to get money to keep the project going,the inability to actually make a PS4 version due to no PS4 development kit, compiled with the lack of information coming from R8 on the state of things, all resulted in a pretty negative state of affairs for Formula Fusion.

With a lot of negative connotations still held for the game posted on the internet, and a new publisher to satisfy, it's not really surprising that it was decided that a change of the games name would give it the best chance of success.
You can't have people Googling a newly released PS4 game that they have heard nothing about, only to find negative reviews of what was in reality only a partially finished game from several years ago, it would turn many away.

It make much more sense to change the games title, and although I'll be sad to see the name Formula Fusion fade into history, if it means the game gets people playing it, then that's what needs to be done.......but 'PACER'....

[JFthebestJan]

I played an early version of FF back in 2016 on 'appleguycipher' PC at wipeout convention in frankfurt, it wasn't very convincing to say the truth. I played an early version of BNG as well over there, which was not very good as well. Here we are now years later with BNG being the best AG racing game of all time, and FF still not fully released, lol

[blackwiggle]

Even up until Nov 2016 there were only 4 tracks available [There were changes to those in later builds], they were still changing handling, the weapons pretty much didn't work [Still ineffective in the last build for what it's worth] and the CARD system had yet to be introduced [Craft alterations], so yeah, it would of been lack luster back then, that's for sure.

I think there would have only been two craft and speed types back then as well.

Things certainly progressed through the years, but the last update to the game of any real note that actually added new stuff was back on 23rd Aug 2017, the rest of the updates since then has been bugs fixes and small alterations across the board.

So by the time of console release there would have been nearly two years worth of work done to the game, from what I've read they have it running rock solid at 120FPS on the latest Unreal engine.

When you consider they started with nothing and basically built the so called 'Full Game' game in two years, given that the same time span has passed to improve of what they had, it should be pretty spectacular, as most of the really hard work had been done