WHAT DOSE BEAMNG LACK?

[Chip]

BeamNG.drive has some of the most impressive soft-body physics in gaming, and it could be the ultimate driving simulator—but it's incredibly frustrating that after all these years, we're still missing features that should be a no-brainer. No dynamic mud effects on cars? Still no realistic tire smoke? No weather effects like rain or snow? And—somehow—still no official multiplayer?

For a game that prides itself on realism, these are huge gaps. It's wild that you can watch every nut and bolt fly off your car in a crash, but your tires stay sparkling clean in the mud, the smoke looks outdated, and you're stuck driving solo in an empty sandbox. No weather means no changing conditions, and no multiplayer means no racing, crashing, or just goofing around with friends—arguably half the fun in any car game.

BeamNG feels like a masterpiece engine trapped in a beta world. I love this game, but it's hard not to be disappointed when these community-requested features are ignored year after year.

[Pluto]

There’s no weather system at all—no rain, no snow, nothing that affects traction or visibility. That alone would add so much depth to driving. Mud doesn’t actually stick to vehicles, tire smoke looks outdated, and environmental interaction just feels minimal outside of crashes.

And yeah, the lack of official multiplayer is a huge one. Being able to race or crash around with friends would add a whole new level of replayability. The physics engine is incredible, but the game world around it feels kind of empty and underdeveloped.

BeamNG has a solid foundation, but it’s missing the polish and systems that would push it into “best driving game ever” territory.

[Raco]

Originally posted by Chip:

BeamNG.drive has some of the most impressive soft-body physics in gaming, and it could be the ultimate driving simulator—but it's incredibly frustrating that after all these years, we're still missing features that should be a no-brainer. No dynamic mud effects on cars? Still no realistic tire smoke? No weather effects like rain or snow? And—somehow—still no official multiplayer?

For a game that prides itself on realism, these are huge gaps. It's wild that you can watch every nut and bolt fly off your car in a crash, but your tires stay sparkling clean in the mud, the smoke looks outdated, and you're stuck driving solo in an empty sandbox. No weather means no changing conditions, and no multiplayer means no racing, crashing, or just goofing around with friends—arguably half the fun in any car game.

BeamNG feels like a masterpiece engine trapped in a beta world. I love this game, but it's hard not to be disappointed when these community-requested features are ignored year after year.

Night-time is pretty bad. It's got too much contrast or something, it looks so off.

[Floof]

Originally posted by Raco:

Originally posted by Chip:

BeamNG.drive has some of the most impressive soft-body physics in gaming, and it could be the ultimate driving simulator—but it's incredibly frustrating that after all these years, we're still missing features that should be a no-brainer. No dynamic mud effects on cars? Still no realistic tire smoke? No weather effects like rain or snow? And—somehow—still no official multiplayer?

For a game that prides itself on realism, these are huge gaps. It's wild that you can watch every nut and bolt fly off your car in a crash, but your tires stay sparkling clean in the mud, the smoke looks outdated, and you're stuck driving solo in an empty sandbox. No weather means no changing conditions, and no multiplayer means no racing, crashing, or just goofing around with friends—arguably half the fun in any car game.

BeamNG feels like a masterpiece engine trapped in a beta world. I love this game, but it's hard not to be disappointed when these community-requested features are ignored year after year.

Night-time is pretty bad. It's got too much contrast or something, it looks so off.

it puts on some weird dark filter.

[Chip]

And the fact they added street lights to the map for them to not even work has got to be the most annoying part abt it

[Camsony]

Originally posted by Pluto:

There’s no weather system at all—no rain, no snow, nothing that affects traction or visibility. That alone would add so much depth to driving. Mud doesn’t actually stick to vehicles, tire smoke looks outdated, and environmental interaction just feels minimal outside of crashes.

And yeah, the lack of official multiplayer is a huge one. Being able to race or crash around with friends would add a whole new level of replayability. The physics engine is incredible, but the game world around it feels kind of empty and underdeveloped.

BeamNG has a solid foundation, but it’s missing the polish and systems that would push it into “best driving game ever” territory.

for mud, I read about how it would be incredibly laggy for it to actually affect cars, it was something about how cars are different in beamng (the whole beams and nodes thing that make it soft body) but a ton of games do it so idrk.. and for me, weather is honestly the main thing because I like the rain, and seeing nothing change is kinda interesting ifyk what I mean. night mode is laggy for me so I don't use it. but overall I agree

[Camsony]

and for something else, it's not exactly something they lack, but they keep on focusing on that damn west coast. While I do like the map, it's just getting annoying seeing west coast has a new location lol. the developers could focus on another big map like east coast, but once again, this isn't really something they lack, they just need to prioritize something else

[Oilshock]

1. Theres a campaign mode that you can try right now.
2. Just use BeamMP to play with friends
3. Community requests aren't ignored, in fact, listening to community requests are one of the major reasons BeamNG has such a loyal fan base.

BeamNG is built on a entirely custom game engine, which makes it hard to implement things like weather and tire wear and stuff. Ultimately, BeamNG was never meant to compete with racing games. BeamNG is not a a "racing game". The devs are listening, they are adding tire wear and weather, its just going to take a while. Right now, the devs are focused on modernizing UI, cars, and giving more of an enjoyable experience with things such as the rally and career modes. These devs are one of the best devs a community could ask for. We get large update every season. Winter, fall, Summer, spring, The scintilla, Johnson valley, Sunburst remaster, the DuneKicker, the Aurata, constant west coast additons, These devs have added stuff like this consistently. In more recent updates, you can see that the devs are preparing for even bigger, even more game-changing updates. If that won't suffice, theres an even more devoted modding scene.

[Oilshock]

Originally posted by Camsony:

Originally posted by Pluto:

There’s no weather system at all—no rain, no snow, nothing that affects traction or visibility. That alone would add so much depth to driving. Mud doesn’t actually stick to vehicles, tire smoke looks outdated, and environmental interaction just feels minimal outside of crashes.

And yeah, the lack of official multiplayer is a huge one. Being able to race or crash around with friends would add a whole new level of replayability. The physics engine is incredible, but the game world around it feels kind of empty and underdeveloped.

BeamNG has a solid foundation, but it’s missing the polish and systems that would push it into “best driving game ever” territory.

for mud, I read about how it would be incredibly laggy for it to actually affect cars, it was something about how cars are different in beamng (the whole beams and nodes thing that make it soft body) but a ton of games do it so idrk.. and for me, weather is honestly the main thing because I like the rain, and seeing nothing change is kinda interesting ifyk what I mean. night mode is laggy for me so I don't use it. but overall I agree

If you do it right, it wouldn't be laggy. If you want to go bare bones, changing some textures on the fly don't seem to hard to do or hard on your computer but I guess it would'nt really match the game too well.

[Soupster]

Beamng already has partially solid colliders (drive into those crash barrels on the highway in WCUSA), and it has heightmaps for the terrain, and it has tyre marks, so those could all be combined into a single surface, surely? like a solid layer so you don't go too far in, and a squishy layer above that which can get deformed.

[PANDEMONIUM]

Beamng needs a remaster for High End Hardware imo.

[shimis]

better anti aliasing, LOD transition smoothing, actual hdr support.

[Chip]

Originally posted by Oilshock:

1. Theres a campaign mode that you can try right now.
2. Just use BeamMP to play with friends
3. Community requests aren't ignored, in fact, listening to community requests are one of the major reasons BeamNG has such a loyal fan base.

BeamNG is built on a entirely custom game engine, which makes it hard to implement things like weather and tire wear and stuff. Ultimately, BeamNG was never meant to compete with racing games. BeamNG is not a a "racing game". The devs are listening, they are adding tire wear and weather, its just going to take a while. Right now, the devs are focused on modernizing UI, cars, and giving more of an enjoyable experience with things such as the rally and career modes. These devs are one of the best devs a community could ask for. We get large update every season. Winter, fall, Summer, spring, The scintilla, Johnson valley, Sunburst remaster, the DuneKicker, the Aurata, constant west coast additons, These devs have added stuff like this consistently. In more recent updates, you can see that the devs are preparing for even bigger, even more game-changing updates. If that won't suffice, theres an even more devoted modding scene.

While it's true that BeamNG's developers have delivered consistent content and updates, the claim that BeamNG was "never meant to compete with racing games" overlooks the fact that its driving physics and vehicle simulation are precisely what appeal to sim racing fans. The idea that a custom engine makes implementing weather or tire wear inherently "hard" is misleading—many racing sims also use custom engines and still manage to feature complex environmental and mechanical systems. Additionally, while updates have been steady, core gameplay mechanics that are crucial for a richer driving experience—like tire degradation or dynamic weather—have lagged behind, despite years of player demand. It's not unreasonable to critique this pacing, especially when those features are central to immersion and realism. The presence of a strong modding scene, while impressive, shouldn't excuse the base game's limitations.

[Rich]

Steam Workshop