While most of the current changes are “under the hood” and not yet ready for demo, we are happy to share with you the process of creating a new location.
More about City Car Driving 2.0 can be found on its page

Let's start with the streets of our city, which have become much more vibrant. We've added many new pedestrian appearance options and clothing presets, significantly diversifying the environment. In addition, we fixed bugs in the pedestrian route selection system: they can now avoid obstacles and react appropriately to their surroundings.
The weather system, which we've been working on for a long time, has also received a significant update. Our artists have reworked the visual effects for all weather conditions, including improved cloud rendering. Now, clouds have sharper edges, and the sky features clear patches even on overcast days. These changes make the game’s atmosphere more dynamic and realistic.Alongside weather improvements, we're actively working on the lighting system. It's important to us that the city's lighting is not only beautiful but also realistic. We are striving to find the perfect balance between visual quality and performance, with light sources playing a key role. This includes lighting from street lamps, signs, and windows, as well as cast shadows. In the video, you can see one of the lighting adjustment processes. By the way, what do you think is happening in this video? It may seem like we're testing the onset of an apocalypse, but in reality, this is part of checking the proper rendering of lightning in the sky and on the ground, considering reflections on wet road surfaces but with more noticeable colors.

You can read more about the diary on the City Car Driving 2.0 page

1. Realism: The behavior of vehicles and pedestrians is as close to reality as possible. We’re working hard to improve AI algorithms to make traffic movement more natural and dynamic. Special attention is given to vehicle behavior at intersections, their reactions to traffic lights, and road signs.
   
2. Interactivity: Traffic responds to the player's actions and other events in the game world. AI-controlled vehicles can adapt to road situations, taking into account the player's actions and those of other road users.
   
3. Dynamism: Road congestion levels change depending on in-game time and other factors, creating diverse driving conditions.

One of the recent changes we added to the game is the effect of time of day on road congestion. This is an important element for a realistic gaming experience, as now you’ll need to choose the most optimal time and routes for your trips.
Mornings in the game are characterized by increased traffic levels. Drivers will need to be extra cautious and patient, maneuvering through the dense flow of vehicles.

• Increased traffic
  
• Some game locations are closed in the early morning hours

Daytime represents the peak period of city activity. Traffic becomes more stable and predictable, allowing for better route planning.

• Standard traffic
  
• Most game locations are open and available for interaction

Evenings bring back higher traffic levels. This creates additional challenges for drivers, requiring more attentive driving.

• Increased traffic
  
• Some locations begin to close

Nighttime is characterized by significantly reduced traffic, offering a chance for more relaxed driving and city exploration.

• Lower traffic
  
• Some night venues open up

To read the diary in full, visit the City Car Driving 2.0 page

Here are slightly updated frequently asked questions with answers, new questions with answers, and if you missed it.
Games on the UE engine often have problematic physics. Have you addressed this, perhaps with a dedicated physics module?

Absolutely. We have our own settings and enhancements for the vehicle physics engine. Specifically, on the UE side, we have overhauled the Chaos physics engine globally, as Chaos was not well-suited for vehicle simulations. We also integrated physical simulation improvements from other projects within our company for more accurate simulation. Compared to the first CCD, the physics have been completely revamped, affecting both player vehicle simulation and traffic behavior. Traffic vehicles now lean during turns, suspension works during braking and acceleration, and player vehicles have updated physics. Suspension is fully simulated, wheels can slip, axle drift can occur, and realistic simulations are applied for front-wheel, rear-wheel, and all-wheel drive.

The city seems "sterile": road signs look factory-fresh, for example. Will this be addressed?

Not specifically with the signs. This is a deliberate decision: we consider that different players have different hardware, and this can affect graphics quality. There are devices that meet only the minimum system requirements (we'll provide more specifics before the Early Access release), and such elements could reduce the readability of signs during gameplay. As for the city, while we haven’t focused on this in our development logs, the roads already have textures and various small debris. Level art work is ongoing.

What is the target audience? There are games like BeamNG for physics and cars, and Forza for graphics and cars. What is CCD for?

For traffic simulation and a variety of activities.

Will there be a projector for the windshield in the game?

Not at the moment. But thanks for the question about customization elements; when we get to customization, we will definitely remember this.

Will there be hands, feet, and body of the driver, and thus animated gear shifting, etc., in the first-person view?

Not in Early Access. We’ll look at community requests later. This is a somewhat controversial aspect for us.

Will it be possible to drive public transport and create your own routes on the map? And at what stage will this be implemented?
If by public transport you mean buses, then no, this option will not be available. We are not aiming to be a BUS Simulator. However, in some form, there will be opportunities to work as a driver for passengers (such as taxis), and something close to that. When this will be implemented is still uncertain.

You can read more questions and answers on the City Car Driving 2.0 page.

The rainy season hasn't bypassed our picturesque Porto-Valanta! We're working hard on improving the dynamic weather change system in the game and we want to show you how the city streets transform when clouds cover the sky and rain begins.

Raindrops sliding down windshields, wet asphalt, reflections in puddles — all of this adds a special atmosphere to the city. Moreover, we've significantly improved the road traffic system. AI-controlled vehicles now react more realistically to their surroundings, traffic lights and road signs.

We've prepared a short atmospheric video for you, where you can see all these changes and immerse yourself in the autumn atmosphere. Thank you for your attention! See you in the next diary!

You can find out more about CCD2 on the game's Steam page

This is quite time-consuming, and to create the intended atmosphere, we need to fine-tune each light source. We are making major efforts to convey the atmosphere of various city locations, and would like to share with you our progress with the game in this area.
Below, you can find the screenshots of current appearance of well-known facilities by day and by night. To see the rest of the screenshots, visit the City Car Driving 2.0 page.

We are facing a number of development challenges for us to overcome before release. We will be using this delay time to fix the discovered bugs and introduce the required changes covered in details below together with the game road map and our news.

We appreciate your understanding and patience and assure you that we on the CCD2 team are making our best efforts to deliver a game that will meet our standards and your expectations.


Road Traffic.

Developing realistic road traffic is one of our key challenges we have been working on hard for many months. Our ambitious goal for City Car Driving 2 is to outmatch road traffic from Part 1 of the game by unleashing full power of Unreal Engine.

For switching to the new engine, we have been rewriting road traffic almost from scratch. Legacy code developed for another technology would not function correctly on the new engine. This ambitious and complex challenge requires continuous rework and fixes. We do not stop our development works for a second. This delay will give us much needed time to achieve best functionality possible at the current stage.

Fine-tuning Gameplay.

This winter, we have kicked-off a large-scale remodeling of the gameplay affecting many of its aspects. Currently, we are working or balancing and aligning all game mechanics so that you could enjoy a comprehensive game experience right from early access. We are testing the game on an ongoing basis to detect and fix bugs. In this extra time, we will be able to work more thoroughly on critical areas of the game.

Our main goal remains unchanged: to deliver City Car Driving 2.0 with entertaining gameplay, well-planned physics, and best road traffic simulation supporting Traffic Rules.

The full news can be found on the City Car Driving 2.0 page

Hello, car fans! Let’s continue with presentation of the game. This time instead of the city, we will be showing rough terrain woodland. We are already working on all the bugs in the video. Happy viewing!

Let’s start with high-speed driving on an unpaved road. You will be feeling the rough terrain as response from your steering wheels and game pads.

You will be facing some challenges on this road, but to avoid spoilers of the upcoming game, we have turned off all tasks and UI in this segment.

What do you think of these parts of the game adding fun to the Traffic Rules? Leave your comments, we are open to discussion!

That’s it for today, thank you for viewing. Developers Diaries are published every two weeks, follow us!

You can learn more about City Car Driving 2.0 here.

We've done this before in a short one-minute video, now we're showcasing updated views. Enjoy watching! Thanks for watching. Logs are released every two weeks – don’t miss them!
You can learn more about City Car Driving 2.0 here.