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The ultimate Hypercar and GT3 simulator.
GT3 and endurance racing has long been a staple among racing simulators and so called “sim-cade” racing games for quite a while now. Games such as Gran Turismo 7, Forza Motor Sport, Assetto Corsa Competitionze, and iRacing, and more have all featured GT3s of various eras and and endurance racing for quite some time now. Plus, due to F1 drivers like Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll driving GT3s in GT World Challenge, Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS), and Nürburgring 24 Hours, popularity has been increasing. Now, Le Mans Ultimate (LMU) enters the mix and adds hypercars, prototypes, and an official World Endurance Championship license. Multi-class racing, 24 hour races, driver swaps, and of course Circuit de la Sarthe (Le Mans) itself is all part of what makes Le Mans Ultimate special.
Le Mans Ultimate, from Studio 397 is the follow up to one of the most realistic racing sims, rFactor 2 and uses the same isiMotor 2.5 engine. It was originally released in early 2024 as early access then followed with a full 1.0 release in July 2025. As mentioned above this is an officially licensed World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series game which means Le Mans Ultimate is focused on LMH, LMP2, LMP3, GTE, and LMGT3 classes.
Single player & Multiplayer
The game is split into single player and multiplayer modes. Single player consists of one mode, Race Weekends. In Race Weekends you can setup practices, qualifying, and the race itself. There’s lots here to customize. You can do a single practice session without qualifying or racing, with or without other drivers. Or you can setup a race with a qualifying session and no practice, the choice is up to you how you setup a weekend. 4 seasons of WEC and ELMS are available, 2023. ‘24, ‘25, and ‘26 with specific classes and tracks available in each season. The normal options of time of day, track condition/temperature are all there as well. You can also setup which classes of cars to practice, qualify, and race against. There is an exhilarating feeling of having a full grid of 3 classes of cars on Spa, managing GT3 traffic in an Aston Martin Valkyrie, whether in single or multiplayer.
There’s not much else to do in single player unfortunately, there’s no campaign, championship, or career mode. There is the option to create a full 24 hour race with the ability to save mid-race (during pit-stops) which does somewhat make up for the lack of more a more defined season experience.
Racing against the AI drivers is very enjoyable. They are quite competent and mostly aware of the player. There weren’t too many instances of blindly dive-bombing or overly aggressive behavior. The AI defends fairly well, though not overly aggressively. They seem to do it more against other AI than the player. During multi-class races, the AI are able to manage traffic effectively, as long as you drive predictably and don’t block classes above you. Lower classes will drive accordingly when given the blue flag. The only real issue is on certain corners the AI tends to take the same line and never defend. As long as you wait for the right moment to attack, you’ll get an easy overtake every time. This seemed to happen a lot on Spa at turn 13. To get the most out of the AI it worked best to run a full weekend (practice, qualifying, and race), instead of jumping into a race straight away.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is what LMU is really built around and is one of it’s best features. Races are setup and joined through Race Control, the same system that rFactor 2 used and is setup in the same way. The system is straightforward and easy to get into races. Players earn ranks (Bronze, Silver, Gold) and badges based on a driver and safety rating system. Ranks are earned by racing cleanly, overtaking, winning races etc. Badges are based on the amount of incidents or contact the player has made. Badges include Rookie, Good, Trusted, Warning. It’s a good system meant to encourage clean racing but also an indicator of who to avoid when on track.
There are Daily, Weekly, Special Events, Online Championships, and Hosted Events.
Daily Races feature an hourly rotating list of sessions that reset every week. The races are split into 3 categories, Beginner (open to all), Intermediate (Silver rank and up), and Advanced (Gold rank). Beginner is has fixed car setups and is only single class. Intermediate adds multi-class with longer races, and Advanced adds longer races and includes all classes.
Weekly Races and Special Events are only open to Silver and up and feature longer multi-class races. They also can affect the player’s driver and safety ranking more than daily races as there is more risk and reward involved.
Online Championships are seasons of races with points for the season awarded after each race. This also has more involved and immediate race stewarding than daily and weekly races.
Hosted Events are privately hosted sessions run through Race Control. These are unranked but allow the player to setup a race how ever they want.
Race Control offers a free and 2 paid tiers for online racing. The free tier allows the user to join daily, weekly, special events, and practice servers. The lowest paid tier offers Online Championships, the ability to join a premium team (up to 100 members), custom liveries, and incident protests. The highest paid tier includes everything mentioned before plus access to all DLC for Le Mans Ultimate and rFactor 2 for as long as you are subscribed. It’s good value considering there is a fair bit of content for both titles.
There is also Co-Op mode which is a kind of asynchronous multiplayer mode against AI. It let’s players join longer (4+ hours) endurance races with friends/teammates and swap drivers at each pitstop. The results of each team’s race are put on a leaderboard. It’s a unique way to compete against other real drivers without the stress of potentially messing up other players races.
There are plenty of options for more casual and hardcore racers here and the badge system helps improve driving skill and ability to avoid reckless drivers. The servers were quick with no noticeable lag. I have decent, but not the greatest internet speeds and didn’t notice cars teleporting around the track.
Content, tracks, and cars
Compared to other sim titles the base version of LMU doesn’t offer as much in the way of cars and tracks. The focus here though are the various seasons of WEC and ELMS, and that is represented very well. All of the tracks are laser scanned and are some of the most detailed versions in sim racing. Fans who follow the series will be happy that most cars and tracks are available here. The base game contains 7 tracks, and 19 cars (9 Hypercars, 3 LMGT3, 2 LMP2, 1 LMP3, 4 GTE). Each car and track feel unique and challenging to learn so the lack of content compared to other games isn’t an issue.
Handling and force feedback
Le Mans Ultimate is not an easy game to play. Driving the hypercars and LMP2s and 3s can be frustrating and will test your patience when you come into a corner just a little to fast, brake, get a snap of oversteer, spin and ruin your lap. To drive effectively you have to watch your tire temperatures very carefully and know the track well. Once the temps are at an optimal level the cars feel glued to the road and it is a rewarding experience to play. Of course once the tires degrade a bunch you’ll be in the same spot as before, and this is how it should feel. Studio 397 has done a great job with the physics of the tires, suspension, and steering.
All of this translates reasonably well to the force feedback. With a Fanatec CSL DD, once the settings are dialed in the feedback gives enough detail but it’s not amazing. The default settings in game do feel rough and grainy. A fair bit of smoothing and dampening was needed to stop oscillations even when just driving normally down a straight.
Gamepad support is included. Though the focus is on wheel and pedal setups, playing with a gamepad is doable. By default steering is very sensitive. You have the option to adjust deadzone and sensitivity for steering, breaking, and accelerating. To get the best feeling I enabled some assists like steering help, spin recovery, and steering lock to make everything a little easier. It’s not the most realistic but it made playing with a controller more enjoyable. It’s a bit of a shame the out of box experience isn’t a bit more accessible.
Graphics, UI, and sound
Everything from the cars to the tracks and track side details are very highly detailed. The changing lighting from day to night during longer races looks great. The rain effects are excellent, with lots of spray coming from cars and puddles forming on certain parts of the track. Performance is good with a full multi-class AI grid. No slow downs or stuttering were noticeable, even on a low to mid-range PC with mid to high settings.
The user interface is clean, easy to navigate, and responsive. Some of the transitions though could be quicker. The main transition of the LMU logo sliding in every time a page changes does get a little tiring. Loading times for getting into a session were good and have gotten quicker with the latest updates.
The sound is great all around. The cars sound believable to their real life counterparts. I don’t have any real world experience with any of these cars but they sound accurate and close enough to real recordings.
Is Le Mans Ultimate worth playing?
It’s a hardcore sim and there is a steep learning curve with understanding how to drive the cars and how to drive in multi-class races. You have to be very mindful of tire temperatures and car setup to make the most out of each car. The base game has an ok amount of content for the price and with the latest updates allows the user to race in all seasons and classes in single player and multiplayer so far. Previously unless you owned the right DLC you wouldn’t be able to join certain races. The cost of the DLC can add up, though the added tracks and cars are probably worth it for many players.
If you’re into a challenge in both single and multiplayer on one of the most realistic sims yet then Le Mans Ultimate is most definitely worth playing.
Note: This was played on a Windows 11 PC through Steam.
System: AMD Ryzen 5800x, 16 GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060ti, Fanatec CSL DD (5NM), CSL Load Cell Pedals
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