Assetto Corsa EVO: Free Roam starts December 9 with roughly 70 km²

The first Free Roam release has a date

KUNOS Simulazioni and 505 Games have announced that Assetto Corsa EVO Update 0.10 will arrive on December 9, 2026. A new video on the Assetto Corsa Official channel, published October 16, displays the date at the end. Its description confirms that this version will include the first iteration of Eifel Free Roam. The official Steam announcement links to the same video.

This is a future release announcement. The demonstration at SimRacing Expo Frankfurt does not mean that everyone can already download the mode. The date supplies the detail missing from the October 7 presentation; it does not mean the complete map and all later expansions will arrive together.

A full-scale Eifel around the Nürburgring

The project recreates Germany’s Eifel region at 1:1 scale. The new announcement describes a LIDAR-scanned reconstruction. The earlier official explanation places the initial playable area around the Nordschleife, nearby villages and connecting roads. The open world will subsequently expand into other representative parts of the region.

In an original Traxion interview published October 17, Marco Massarutto puts the first area at roughly 70 square kilometres. That is its approximate initial size, not the final extent of the entire Eifel. He explains that its boundaries will expand with further releases. Roads, elevations, bends, junctions and bridges retain the reference to real counterparts described by KUNOS.

Multiplayer traffic and four-player sprints

Massarutto confirms multiplayer from the first phase, with AI traffic. For server capacity, he mentions 30 people, qualifying the figure with “if I’m not wrong”. We treat that as an approximate planned reference, rather than a guaranteed final limit. Directly inviting a Steam friend into the same server is still under discussion and might not arrive in that first phase.

For sprint races, he describes four participants, closed roads and no traffic. That differs from exploring the traffic-filled map: players will be able to generate a race and invite friends. Time Attacks offer another point-to-point format.

Creating custom Time Attack routes, defining start and finish points and sharing them with others is a future objective. He also envisages further challenges and gameplay features alongside map expansions. He does not assign these tools to the initial release or give them a date.

The earlier official explanation also describes changing weather, a complete day/night cycle and variable traffic. These are developer-announced features; we have not measured their performance or server stability.

What visitors can try in Frankfurt

SimRacing Expo visitors can try the first public Free Roam demonstration from October 16 to 18. The organiser schedules KUNOS co-founder and Executive Manager Marco Massarutto’s presentation for Friday, October 16, at 16:00 CEST. That is the exhibition presentation time, not the December update’s unlock time.

The demonstration offers an early look at the mode; it does not by itself establish the final update’s scope. All three images in this article come from official material released with the October 7 presentation and show the game environment. They are not photographs of Frankfurt demonstration stations.

No car-unlocking economy; progression remains under consideration

Massarutto reiterates that the economy based on earning money or grinding to unlock and buy cars will not return. He explains that it affected many parts of the project, consumed development resources and complicated coexistence with community-created content.

He distinguishes that decision from player progression and a possible career mode. Both remain under consideration or among the plans, with ideas involving profiles, statistics and online reputation. He does not announce a finished career mode, a fixed structure or a release date for these possibilities.

The terrain system also looks towards modders

To build such a large environment, he describes an algorithm that converts LIDAR data into terrain and places vegetation. Buildings use procedural generation but are positioned through an editor: the team abandoned its initial automatic-placement approach because it did not achieve the desired detail.

He intends to make that terrain system available to mod creators in the future. This is a tool-development plan with no announced date or confirmation that the tools are already available.

Circuit racing development continues

The KUNOS executive says work continues on circuit-racing AI, which uses the same physics as the player. The aim is a broader improvement before integration into a coming Early Access build. Tyre-model and physics work also continues, starting with racing cars before applying changes to road cars.

Massarutto keeps longer races and driver swaps among future possibilities. The discussion assigns them no specific date and does not confirm them for version 0.10. Free Roam remains the next announced milestone while those competitive-racing features continue in development.

What has a date and what remains outstanding

The December 9 date and version 0.10 come from Assetto Corsa’s official video and Steam announcement. Traxion’s interview adds Massarutto’s direct explanations but does not replace complete patch notes: it gives no unlock time, new commercial terms or console launch.

The version 0.9 statement already placed Free Roam within Early Access. The first area, world expansions, future tools and departure from Early Access are separate milestones. Publication of the interview on October 17 does not turn every discussed plan into a feature available that day.