KartKraft Is Now Accessible And Playable Again

There’s a lot of justifiable criticism of Motorsport Games for various reasons past and present, but to be fair, KartKraft is now accessible and playable again after a server connection issue caused seven days of authentication issues when you tried to get into the karting sim.

The issue occurred because KartKraft requires a server connection when you log into the game. In addition to Ben Rossiter-Turner, VP of Competition for Motorsport Games, posting in the KartKraft Discord to explain the issue, CEO Stephen Hood also posted on the KartKraft Reddit to state that the ‘the project was all but abandoned when Motorsport Games pick it up.” He went on to say he doesn’t “evisage it being further developed in the nearfuture” but they were working on making it operational again and he apologised for the downtime.

That’s good news for existing and new owners of KartKraft, and a pleasant surprise given that the original development team of the sim had been laid off by Motorsport Games some time ago, meaning no one still at the company was familiar with the codebase or how anything had been set up.

While this may have been done because, as Stephen Hood posted, Motorsport Games “totally get the love for it”, the other reason may be that there have been enquiries about buying KartKraft from undisclosed third parties. And obviously there will be more interest, and a potentially higher sale price, for a game which is working and still available through Steam.

There is some bad news however. A second server issue has been causing slowdown and stutter, even when you’re driving in solo practice, and the only way to potentially get around it is to enter ‘-EnableGRPC=false’ in the KartKraft Steam configuration, and this is highly unlikely to be fixed for the foreseeable future. Along with other notable issues, such as the online leaderboards no longer working, and the lack of any online events, which have been unavailable since 2023.

Reponding to enquiries on Discord about making KartKraft run entirely offline, Ben Rossiter-Turner responded that it’s “beyond our current capabilities” and that he imagined it would be a “big job to detangle the always online inventory system”, which is understandable given that KartKraft was originally planned to have an in-game economy, online multiplayer and other features which sadly were never implemented. When it was first acquired, the Motorsport Games development roadmap also added console versions and a potential sequel.

To end on a positive, it’s great that Motorsport Games have taken the time and effort to make KartKraft accessible again for existing owners of the karting sim. And it also makes it more likely that another developer or publisher might approach them with a deal that leads to active development of the title in the future, as it still has a lot of potential. Particularly if online multiplayer was finally available, and the track roster was greatly expanded. While Stephen Hood has commented that it’s a low priority to find a buyer, and karting isn’t particularly aspirational as kart tracks are reasonably accessible around the world, £20.99 for KartKraft is a lot cheaper than most 15 or 30 minute sessions at UK circuits, and it would be a great way to learn and practice before going along to a venue.

Especially if you’re planning on potentially doing an endurance event etc with a group of friends, and given the crossover between sim racers, and real world track day, karting and racing participation.

Hopefully at some point, someone will take on active development of KartKraft. In the meantime, it’s available on Steam, and you can check out the latest news and updates on the future of the sim, here.