What Cross Racing Championship Extreme is
Cross Racing Championship is a racing simulation built around crossover vehicles and circuits that mix rally and road racing. You race on and off road across open terrain, with over 60 races spread across six environments: icy mountain regions, countryside, desert areas and beaches among them. The handling is fully simulated, with no assist forces, and the physics model covers tyres, surfaces and aerodynamics. Damage happens in real time, so a rough stage or a bad contact shows up on the car. The AI drivers learn the tracks and react emotionally — they can get angry, get afraid of you, and behave unpredictably rather than following a fixed line.
Playing it with friends
The Extreme edition includes 60 multiplayer maps and 10 multiplayer gamemodes: Cross-Race, Return the Flag, Sumo, Capture the Flag, Catch the Flag, Destruction Zone, Free Ride, Gate Hunt, Jamboree and King Zone. Beyond the standard race, these give you flag-capture rounds, a sumo-style arena, a destruction zone, free ride sessions and gate hunts, so a group can switch between competitive racing and looser mess-around modes in one evening. There is also a non-linear career mode for solo play and a special "hot seat" mode. Remote Play Together is supported, which lets people join in from a single copy.
Cars, setup and presentation
Cars are fully customisable in both appearance and performance through an in-game interface: race number, decals, paint job and performance tuning are all yours to change. Setup options are a core part of the game rather than an afterthought, which matters if your group wants to balance cars before a session. Visually the game includes detailed interiors, articulated suspension and glowing disc brakes, particle effects, HDR imaging, bump mapping, motion blur and water reflections on lakes and rivers. The soundtrack comes from five default tracks by the rock/metal band SZEG, and you can drop your own mp3 files into the music folders for in-game or menu playback, with volume on the "+" and "-" keys and track selection on "," and ".".
Before you start
This is the Extreme edition, which bundles all patches and addons made for Cross Racing Championship. The current version supports Windows 10, 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratio screens, and windowed mode. Expect a simulation-leaning driving model rather than an arcade one: the accurate handling and real-time damage mean clean lines and careful car setup pay off, and the AI will punish sloppy driving once it has learned a track.