I might have a weird habit if it is about cancelled stuff. I love to know the reason why something gets cancelled or abandoned. That is basically what UnracedF1 is. Investigating all those amazing stories of teams that were to enter the grid. The same goes for gaming. There are probably more games not released then released. One of these is F1 Racing Championship 2. The game was scheduled to be released In the fourth quarter of 2001. Obviously, it never did. So what happened?
In the past, I already did two articles similar to this one. It was about Grand Prix 4 for the Xbox and Grand Prix 3 for the Dreamcast.
F1 Racing Championship 2 would have been the successor for Ubisoft’F1 Racing Championship that was released in 2000. The game was based on the 1999 season with tracks that were based on GPS data, at that time a new thing. While the game never reached the level of popularity like the Grand Prix series from Microprose. It was a decent Formula One game If you ask me. It was the first game were you could race with the beautiful Arrows A20! The graphics in the game were marvellous!
Yes there were several problems with the game. The AI of the other cars had some weird bugs. As a result, opponents on the track did not behave, as you would think. There was also a major bug in the game by release. Ubisoft was to have it patched. Though as with USF1 we are still waiting for it to materialise.
While the game was seen to be ok/good to play Ubisoft announced in early 2001 that it would work on the sequel F1 Racing Championship 2. The game would feature the 2000 season. It seems that they start working in the game in early 2001. For F1 Racing Championship 2 a scenario mode would be added to the game. It meant that you would relive, from your view, the events that happen before the start of the season. Like testing events and presentations.
To improve the game several graphical updates were in the making. The effect of environment, like the surface of the track if it rains, would become more realistic. The addition of Camera vibrations and an actual damage model were one of the new features for F1 Racing Championship 2. Some W.I.P. (work in progress) pictures appeared online. Even a short in game video appeared online by Ubisoft. It was hosted on their FTP server though sadly can’t find the video. However, after this it became silence.
What had happened? There are a few stories why it became silence. Probably Ubisoft had some issues with the FIA regarding the use of the license. Assumable it had to do with the Online function of the game. Therefore, Ubisoft abandoned F1 Championship 2 in late august of 2001.
Was this the end of the game? No! Ubisoft decided to bring out another race game. Based on the game they just abandoned. They basically revamped the game and published it as Racing Simulation 3 in late 2002. The game was not a success. It lacked, obviously, the 2000 teams and missed the atmosphere. Another down side of for the game, modders were not interested in the game. So there were only a handful of mods available for the game.
