Evolution of Racing Video Games 1981-2020

1981 Turbo 0:00
1982 Pole Position 0:11
1983 TX-1 0:24
1984 Excitebike 0:39
1985 Hang On 0:54
1986 OutRun 1:11
1987 Rad Racer 1:30
1988 Power Drift 1:49
1989 Hard Drivin 2:09
1990 F-Zero 2:29
1991 Road Rash 2:45
1992 Virtua Racing 3:04
1993 Ridge Racer 3:24
1994 Sega Rally Championship 3:48
1995 Destruction Derby 4:13
1996 Wipeout 2097 4:35
1997 Gran Turismo 4:54
1998 Colin McRae Rally 5:14
1999 Midtown Madness 5:38
2000 Midnight Club: Street Racing 5:55
2001 Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec 6:18
2002 Auto Modellista 6:38
2003 Need for Speed: Underground 7:02
2004 Burnout 3: Takedown 7:28
2005 Need for Speed: Most Wanted 7:52
2006 TOCA Race Driver 3 8:26
2007 Race 07 8:59
2008 iRacing 9:26
2009 Need for Speed: Shift 9:48
2010 Split Second 10:16
2011 Driver: San Francisco 10:48
2012 Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 11:10
2013 Grid 2 11:33
2014 Drive Club 12:02
2015 Project CARS 12:27
2016 Forza Horizon 3 12:55
2017 F1 2017 13:31
2018 Forza Horizon 4 14:00
2019 Need for Speed Heat 14:41
2020 Gran Turismo 7 15:10

Credits: Special thanks to Reiji () and World of Longplays () and Shirrako () and DSTRYR () for providing the gameplay footage

Nixian Channel Description:

We’re lifelong video game enthusiasts with a passion for showing the world how our favorite hobby has grown with us, from individual series to industry-wide retrospectives.

We put significant time and creative effort into each one of our videos, including research, digging into archives, recording voiceovers, and editing. Every video takes as many as 10 hours to produce, because we strive to give our fans consistent, high-quality content.

Our popular “Evolution of…” series goes far beyond simply presenting gameplay footage. We take the time to show how a video game property — its gameplay, character designs, graphics, sound direction, etc. — have evolved over time. We include unique voiceover work on each video to enhance the viewing experience.

People have been playing video games for decades. In that time, we’ve gone from moving a white line up and down to block a moving pixel, to participating in full-fledged, painstakingly rendered real-time battles with people all over the world. We help older gamers look back on how these experiences have changed throughout their lives, and new gamers to understand the broader context of the series they’re playing for the first time today.
The video game medium never stops growing, and we’ll never stop chronicling its evolution.
Editing and voice-over were made by me.