8 OCTOBER 2026 IN THE NEXT BUILD

STONES IN THE RIVER

When a wreck clips a corner it knocks the kerbstones loose, and they go flying across the course. That part we love. What we didn't love was where some of them ended up: a stone could sail clear over the bank, land on the river and sit there, bobbing on nothing, for the rest of the race.

Native Windows desktop game capture of red and white kerbstones hitting a blue river beside the track, each throwing up a white splash ring and spray — Five stones, five splashes. Nobody is fishing those back out.

Now a stone that comes down in open water does what the cars already do. It hits with a splash, a ring and a little plume of spray, wallows on the surface for a beat, and then the river closes over it. It goes dark, slips under, and a last ripple spreads where it was.

Native Windows desktop game capture of kerbstones darkening and fading beneath overlapping ripple rings on the river surface — The water does the tidying up. Sinking, not shrinking: the stone stays its size the whole way down.

It takes about a second from splash to gone, and the same goes for a stone that rolls off the bank and into the shallows. A car driving through the spot while it sinks doesn't kick it back out, because it isn't there to kick any more.

Native Windows desktop game capture of the river with only pale ripple rings and a few drops left where the kerbstones went under — All that's left is the rings. The corner grows its stones back on its own schedule, as it always did.

These are captures from the native Windows desktop build. Stones that land on tarmac, grass, sand or in the trees still bounce, roll, settle and stay for the race, and still get pinged when a car runs into them. Only the ones that hit water are different.