"Development of CarX Drift Racing Online 2 has been underway for four years," says Vladimir Berezhnoi from CarX Technologies about the new project

At the end of March, CarX Technologies announced CarX Drift Racing Online 2, and recently it got a page on Steam. App2Top spoke with Vladimir Berezhny, the project PM, about how long the game has been in development and how many wishlists the team plans to gather by release.

Alexander Semyonov, App2Top: Hi! First of all, congratulations on the announcement of CarX Drift Racing Online 2. I'm sure it's great news for fans of the series. By the way, how large is the audience for the first part?

Vladimir Berezhny

Vladimir Berezhny, CarX Technologies: Hi! Thank you so much for the congratulations! Regarding the first part of CarX Drift Racing Online – since its release, over 6 million copies have been sold across all platforms (since the release in 2017).

Our active audience averages around 700,000 players per month, which indicates a stable interest in the game even years after its release.

As I understand it, the project also has an excellent online presence for a game launched eight years ago. What's the average online presence now across all platforms?

Vladimir: The average online presence across all platforms is 5-7 thousand players.

I've always been curious about when the creators of a service product, which regularly receives updates — like CarX Drift Racing Online still does — decide it's time to make a second part?

Vladimir: In our case, a critical mass of tasks accumulated that were architecturally incompatible with the current implementation.

Reworking the old project would have required tremendous time comparable to creating a new game from scratch.

Moreover, some features are simply impossible to implement within the current architecture, so we decided to start developing the second part.

How long has the development of the second part been going on?

Vladimir: Four years.

How big is the team working on the game?

Vladimir: Currently — 17 people.

Am I correct in assuming that now the team from the first part, since CarX Drift Racing Online 2 is on the horizon, will be transferred to it? And, correspondingly, the support for the first part will gradually be phased out?

Vladimir: The team that worked on the first part will continue to actively support the project throughout 2025.

In 2026, we plan to gradually reduce the level of support and systematically decrease the team size to focus resources on developing the new game.

The first part is sold on Steam and consoles. Where did the game perform best? On which platform will you focus in the case of CarX Drift Racing Online 2?

Vladimir: Consoles are undoubtedly a more attractive market, but we do not plan to focus on one platform to the detriment of others. The experience of the first part showed that the best results are achieved when all players are on an equal footing, and cross-platform interaction works flawlessly. That's what we will focus on.

The game's release is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2025. You will be launching in early access format. What will be missing from the project at the start?

Vladimir: At the start of early access, major features like esports functionality, a ranking system, and duel matchmaker will not be present. We'll add most of the vehicles and locations during early access.

By the way, will CarX Drift Racing Online 2, like the first part, also be a premium title?

Vladimir: Yes.

Do you have a target number of wishlists you plan to gather by the release during early access?

Vladimir: Our minimum goal is to surpass the first part, which is around 50,000 wishlists.