Almost as long as computers of all types have existed, games have been made for those computers. At the start of the 1980s, it was such an emerging form of entertainment that a company called Atari created a home console to hook up to your TV so you could play video games in the comfort of your living room. Eventually there were also personal computers that ran the at-the-time all new operating system of DOS, and of course, games were soon programmed to work on those computers too.
Between consoles and the PC, the Mustang of pretty much all generations has had a special place in simulator racing (Simracing) and arcade racing games. From game programmed and distributed directly by Ford themselves, to licensed reproductions in some of the biggest names in the scene, the Mustang is one of the most enduring and prolific cars across the entire racing game scene.
As such, in a bit of a less-formal-more-fun look at our favorite muscle car, we’re going to look at a handful of the games that the Mustang appeared in. This is in no way a complete and comprehensive list. If we listed every single game the Mustang has appeared in, this would be a 40 page article, so we’re focusing on major releases only, with a couple of notable mentions.
1980s
PC: The Ford Simulator (1987)
With the rise of the personal computer in the late 1980s, Ford’s marketing department had the brilliant idea of enticing an entirely new generation of customers through a new avenue: gaming. As such, they hired developers The SoftAd Group and Beck-Tech to program a freeware driving game that was given out at Ford dealerships on 5.25” floppy discs.
One of the vehicles you could “test drive” on your home computer was the fox-body Mustang GT, as well as the lower-tier Mustang LX. Using the all-new, 16 bit color technology known as EGA (Extended Graphics Array) and a stunning resolution of 32×200 pixels, you could “drive” any of the 1988 Ford models included in the game.
It wasn’t exactly meant to be a top-tier, triple-A title, and as such it barely makes it as a footnote in history. However, it was the first time that Ford officially let their vehicles be represented in a simulated form in a video game, and was the launching point for the Blue Oval to start allowing the Mustang to be included in other games.
Arcade/NES: Chase H.Q. (1988)
While this “Cop in a Porsche” chase game by industry legends Taito Japan had the license from Porsche to use the 928 as the chase vehicle, a lot of unofficially, unlicensed cars were included for the bad guys to try to evade you in. One of these was the “Flat 4 DOHC 2,200cc” escape vehicle that bore a strong, almost striking resemblance to a fox-body Mustang GT. Of course, it wasn’t officially a Mustang, but anyone with a pair of eyes and two brain cells to rub together knew exactly what it was.
It was the same way that everyone knew that the car labeled “Flat 12 DOHC 4,966cc” was a Lamborghini Countach. In fact, the only other licensed car in the game apart from the Porsche 928 was the 911 Turbo 3.0. Back then, however, a lot of developers played fast and loose with “official” brands, as long as they weren’t exact replicas of badges, silhouettes, or actual performance.
Chase H.Q. was significant because it was one of the better attempts to recreate actual performance of road cars on the NES. Despite its arcade-driving playstyle, it is considered unofficially as one of the first “sim-arcade” games that crossed the bridge between the driving-on-rails arcade style and the dynamic vehicle response of a simulator. It was very, very basic at that, but with the “Mustang” included, it does count! It is the car encountered in the first mission of the video below, taken from the NES version:
1990s
PC: Ford Simulator II (1990), Ford Simulator III (1992), Ford Simulator 5.0 (1994)
As you can probably guess from the header, the Ford Simulator experiment from 1987 worked rather well. As such, three more versions were made, 2 years apart each time. The reason that the fourth entry is listed as 5.0 is because 1994 was the first year of the 4th Gen Mustang, including the 5.0 V8 GT.
Despite the advent of Windows, albeit in the 3.11 format, all of the games were still programmed to be DOS compatible. Advances included the expansion to the amazing resolution of 640×480, inclusion of VGA and SVGA graphics, and, at least with FS III and FS 5.0, actual driving destinations. They were still very, very simple games that were barely concealed marketing, but at the time they were freeware, and it never hurt to get a free game by visiting a Ford dealership.
Of note, FS 5.0 was the first game in the world to include a 4th Gen Mustang, and as will be seen rather soon, set a precedent that finally ended up with Ford officially licensing their vehicles to be recreated in several games. In that sense, Ford Simulator quite literally paved the way for the Mustang to make it into other video games.
PS1/Saturn/PC: The Need For Speed (1994)
The very first Need for Speed game after Electronic Arts bought Pioneer Productions and renamed it EA Canada did have a Mustang in it, although it was a bit hidden. All of the player cars were high end sports cars or supercars of the day, such as the Acura NSX, Ferrari Testarossa, and Corvette C4 ZR-1.
Where the Mustang, in its first appearance as a licensed car, came in was in Police mode. In this mode, while you are racing the other cars, you can occasionally be chased by the Police. In this case, they were driving the 1993 Ford Mustang Special Service Package, which was also known as the Mustang Interceptor for highway patrol departments.
The Need For Speed retained the Mustang police car when it was re-released in 1996 as Need For Speed: Special Edition, which updated the game to run on Windows 95 for the PC. Both the original and special editions were extremely important for the reason already stated: This was the first game to have a licensed Ford Mustang included.
PS1: Gran Turismo 2 (1999)
Finally we get to the big daddy of early “sim racers:” Gran Turismo. After the stellar success of the first game in 1997, Sony and Polyphony Digital pulled out all the stops for the sequel. The money from the first game allowed them to capture car dynamics better, as well as license a hell of a lot more cars. GT1 had 180 cars, GT2 had 650!!
Part of that expansion of licensing was no less than 17 Fords, and four of those were Mustangs. Included in this behemoth of a game was the Mustang GT from both 98 (pre-facelift) and 99 (post-facelift), and the SVT Cobra version of both from 98 and 99 again. From GT2 onwards, there has been at least one Mustang of some type in every single game in the series.
Gran Turismo 2 is often credited with being the game that properly launched interest in simracing and “sim-arcade” racing, and a lot of games that came in the 21st century in some way owe their existence to GT2. GT1 was a bombshell, but GT2 was the nuke heard around the world. Without Gran Turismo, things would have eventually been made, but the game showed that there was real interest in racing on consoles, and it just so happens that the Mustang was one small part of that.
2000s
PC/PS1/PS2/XBOX: Ford Racing Series (2000 to 2008)
Starting in the year 1998, Ford licensed out a lot of their cars to developer Elite Systems and publisher Empire Interactive. Together, they made the first Ford Racing game, which came out in the year 2000 for the PC and 2001 for the PS1. Although mostly promoted and sold in Europe, it was also released in North America, with the first game containing 12 Ford cars on 9 fictional tracks. Of course, one of those cars was the Mustang.
Ford Racing 2 was released in 2003 for the PS2, with an XBOX and PC release later on in the year. It upped the car count to 30, including multiple variants of the Mustang, as well as providing 16 tracks and the ability to race head to head. Ford Racing 3 came soon after in 2004 in Europe and 2005 in North America. It had 55 Ford vehicles, again with multiple variants of the Mustang, and 14 tracks.
The next game of the series was Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives in 2005. It was released only for the PS2 and XBOX, and featured 40 Mustangs from the original 1963 version all the way to the (at the time) 2005 versions. It featured a full 22 tracks to race on. Ford Street Racing came next in 2006, and featured the Shelby GT500 as the “hero car” of the game. It was released on PC, PS2, XBOX, and had a port done by Eidos Interactive for the Playstation Portable.
XBOX/X360: Forza Motorsport series (2005 to present)
This is the one game series that people are familiar with from the Microsoft side of the console wars. While Gran Turismo helped start the simcade style of game for consoles, it can honestly be said that Forza Motorsport took the idea and ran with it.
Of course, being a North American developed game, North American cars featured extensively, including the Mustang. What propelled the game into popularity, however, was that from the very outset, it was multiplayer capable over the internet via Xbox Live.
In fact, the Mustang was one of the first hero cars in the first game you could get in the game after competing in a few races to get some credits to be able to buy one and upgrade it for racing. It also features heavily in the spin-off series, Forza Horizon, which is a massively multiplayer online road racing game.
The games in the series that occurred before 2010 were Forza Motorsport for the XBOX, and then Forza Motorsport 2 in 2007 for the X360 and Forza Motorsport 3 in 2009, again for the X360. Other releases that feature Mustangs are FM4 in 2011, FM5 in 2013, FM6 in 2015, FM7 in 2017, and the series reboot that features the 7th Gen Mustang in Forza Motorsport in 2023 for the XBSeriesX and PC
2010s
While there were quite a few racing games released in the 2010s, a lot of them didn’t touch on the Mustang, or if they had Ford cars, skipped the Mustang as it wasn’t a serious GT3 or GT4 car at the time. That is, except for perhaps one of the most important racing games released in this decade…
PC (PS4 & XBOne in 2016): Assetto Corsa (2014)
This is where things get ultra-serious. Assetto Corsa, despite being a game, isn’t really a “game” as much as it is a hardcore simulator pretending to be a game. Just look at the developer Kunos Simulazioni’s history to figure it out. Formed in 2005, the company is headquartered in one of the infield buildings at the ACI Vallelunga Circuit just outside of Rome, Italy. The original purpose of the company was to develop racing simulation software and updates for professional teams to use on their $100,000+ simulators back at their factories.
They took all of their knowledge and created Assetto Corsa (literally meaning “Race Setup” in Italian), and as part of the original release, the 2015 Ford Mustang was included, the first year of the 6th Gen. What makes Assetto Corsa different from almost any game that came before it was that it didn’t just simulate suspension, tire grip, and the “basics.”
No, AC simulated everything. Tire sidewall deflection, aerodynamic disturbances when you turned the wheel, wheelspin when a turbo spooled up, how hot the tires and brakes were, how track temperature affected adhesion… everything. As part of this, Kunos brought one of every car they officially released in AC to Vallelunga and spent weeks driving it around, including the Mustang.
What this means is that for literally the first time, if you drove the Mustang in Assetto Corsa and then went and drove an actual 2015 Mustang GT, the driving sensations would be similar. This game is important because it was the first game to properly and fully measure how a Mustang drove and handled using thousands of sensors, and recreated it as faithfully as possible inside the game engine.
Another thing that keeps Assetto Corsa in the mainstream is that it is very capable of being modded to the moon and back. In this sense, there are tens of unofficial Mustang mods available for free to add to the game, as well as new tracks, sounds, and even things as diverse as adding full roadways systems and weather effects.
2020s
PC: Assetto Corsa Competizione (May 2024 update, original game released 2019)
The most recent addition of a Mustang to a simracing game came about in May of this year, when Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC), the sequel to Assetto Corsa (AC) as well as the official game of the International GT Global Challenge, released the Mustang GT3. Even better, despite a lot of packs for the game needing to be purchased, the Mustang was added for free.
What sets ACC apart from many other simracing games is that all of the cars in the game, much like with the original AC, are modeled based on real-world data capture and feedback. Multiple teams taking part in the series captured data from live sessions that Kunos then used to make each car handle as realistically as possible. Of course, being a sim, it can’t get absolutely everything right, but it is close enough to the real thing that during the global pandemic, the actual teams and drivers used ACC to hold virtual races.
The Mustang GT3 being added to the game came with support directly from Ford, who supplied data as well as let members of the team that have racing experience drive the actual car to get it as close as possible to the real thing. All of the cars also use real sounds recorded for use in the game, as well as all of the tracks in the game being laser scanned by Kunos to be accurate down to the millimeter in dimensions. The big addition to ACC as well was that it has a much more advanced surface modelling engine than AC, meaning that one one track you might get mild tire abrasion, but on an older, rougher track, you’ll get more tire abrasion and need to visit the pits more often.
