Alright, he thought.
Im going to smash this stage.
By the time of our chat, though, hes laughing.
It was the pleasant fantasy of somebody whod fallen asleep reading Asimov to the accompaniment of Rush.
I worked on it for so long, for five years, designer Jay Weston says.
And I was itching to do something different.
The Exo One craft was designed to go through anything, he says.
Blast over whatever planet youre on.
We started with the Exo ball, and it was kind of fun, Lindsay says.
And I think I was more sold on the idea of that initially.
The decision had enormous knock-on effects for the shape of the planets that players would drive across.
That really appeals to me, Weston says.
On a sphere there are no wheels that can break off, Weston says.
You cant puncture a tyre or damage the suspension.
The challenge will be trying to walk that line of risk and reward, Weston says.
Its also a level of challenge that the pair are still tuning.
But I love that sort of difficulty.
It just forces me to try and retry, try and get better.
And in some respects, Exo Rallys desolate, wide-open tracks are actually more forgiving than their real-world equivalents.
Whereas because [an untamed planet] has no roads on it, youve got heaps of creative freedom.
you might drive the rover all over the place and pick your own route.
And if you go wide on the corner, usually youre just losing time compared to your opponents.
An onboard service drone, meanwhile, can attend to some of the rovers breakages while on the move.
Snap off a wheel in a bad landing, and the drone can fly out to attach another one.
Exo Rallys simulation makes no exceptions for drones.
And theyre subject to a pretty astonishing amount of nuance.
But should you suffer a fuel leak, you risk being left with no thrusting capacity whatsoever.
Still, it could be worse: an oxygen leak is much more frightening.
Were planning on some pretty hairy moments, Weston says.
The precise nature of the metagame that links Exo Rallys races is still to be defined.
Its a concept that, for me, taps into the underexplored transportive potential of simulation as a whole.
Yes, its a great technical achievement to have computers mimic our real-world motorsports down to the mudguards.
To ground us in spaces well never visit.
If you ask me, it makes for a lifetime of more interesting daydreams.
