Get out anywhere - Step out of your car on any road, bridge or mountain pass and walk wherever you like

Call your car - Wandered off? Call your car from the pause menu and it waits for you at the nearest roadside

Back on the road - Fall into the sea or off a ledge and you are back on the last road you stood on

Traffic sees you - Traffic and rivals brake, steer around you and honk; get hit and you go down as a ragdoll the whole lobby sees

Map on foot - The minimap and the big map show you and the car you left behind

Live events - Every ~10 minutes the lobby is called to a speed camera, a drift zone, a course or a near-miss run for 3 to 5 minutes, and a good result pays as much as a duel

Events solo - Driving alone? You race the 3 nearest players of your car's class from the world board

Workshop - Share your liveries and tunes and try on what other players made for your car: hold to put it on, missing parts are bought in one go

Who can hit you - New lobby setting: nobody, friends or everyone can knock people on foot down

Tune presets - Three presets per car, each with its own parts and full setup; switch with 1, 2, 3 or Y on a pad, and parts you own work in all of them

Distant traffic - At night you see traffic headlights and tail lights up to 3 km away, and the cars themselves up to 2.5 km

Lights in fog - Headlights, tail lights and tunnel lamps glow in fog and rain

Crash sounds - every hit has its own weight now: light taps, solid knocks and heavy smashes, all from real recordings, and the sound travels with your car

Scraping - slide along a wall or a rail and the grind lasts as long as the contact, then fades out as you pull away

Sparks and debris - hits throw sparks and shards of plastic, lights and glass, and kick up dust

Tuned rivals - the fastest street racers now fit parts to their cars (boost, aero, grip) when your build is too fast for them

Tougher top tier - rivals keep getting faster past the old skill limit, so long winning streaks at the top finally meet a fight

Time trials - 7 timed runs are back on the island: Touge Downhill, Touge Hillclimb, Kanjo Loop, Coast Ring, Onsen Kaido, gimba and the Quarter Mile. Cross a start line and the clock is already running

Ghost splits - every gate shows how far you are ahead of or behind your best, with the whole track drawn as a bar under the clock

Run finish - your time, the gap to your record and your payout land in the middle of the screen

Speed cameras - 6 cameras on the Kanjo and the coast road flash anyone doing over 100 km/h. Your top speed through each one is a record

Drift zones - 3 tracks in the drift park by Kannon temple: Minami, Kita and Higashi. Every lap is scored, and a crash burns the combo you were carrying

Leaderboards - a new page in the pause menu for every run, camera and zone: World, your Class, your Car and Friends. The top 10 and the drivers right around you

Achievements - 13 new for time trials, speed cameras and drift zones, from your first flash to 300 km/h past a camera

Run icons - time trials, cameras and drift zones each get their own icon, filled in once you hold a record. Point at one to see its length, your record, the world best and your place

Straight to the leaderboard - click a run on the map to open its leaderboard. Back returns you to the map exactly where you were

Waypoint on anything - right-click a run, camera or zone to put your waypoint on its start

Waypoint beam - your waypoint stands in the world as a column of light with the distance to it

Tuning menu - its own entry in the pause menu, with tabs for Engine, ECU, Gearing, Diff, Suspension, Brakes and Aero

ECU map - reshape the torque curve column by column, every thousand rpm. Push the top end up and the low end pays for it

Every gear - set each gear on its own and see the speed it tops out at

Cam gears - a new engine part. Advance the cams for low-end pull, retard them to move the power up to the limiter

Boost, launch, aero, torque split - boost pressure with the intercooler, launch control revs with the ECU remap, aero balance, and the front/rear split on all-wheel drive

Tyre pressure - set front and rear separately

Tuning cards - every setting shows what it changes: speed, acceleration, launch, handling, stability, grip, braking

Locked settings - every setting is listed before you own the part, with the part that opens it

Animal trophies - animal stickers are earned now: flatten one on the road to stick it, and stick as many as you've flattened

New music - Tokimeki and No Plans join the day station

Winter - the whole island is under snow until the end of February: ground, trees, roofs, guardrails and rocks

Snowfall - snow instead of rain all winter, the flakes lit up by your headlights

Winter roads - slush and packed snow along the edges, dark wet wheel tracks down the middle, plough banks along the verges

Winter sun - the sun sits lower, mornings come later and evenings earlier

Bare trees - the oaks drop their leaves for the winter

Snow banks - drive into a plough bank and it bursts into snow; the gap you made stays

Ruts - your tyres press tracks into the snow

Snow spray - on snow your tyres throw up snow and powder, not smoke

Snow on cars - snow builds up on your car and wheels, tears off the roof when you launch and shakes off on a jump

Parked cars - cars at the parking areas stand under snow, the bonnet melted clear by a warm engine

Winter jobs - a fifth daily all winter and a winter weekly: break through snow banks, drive on snow, top speed on snow

Tyres on snow - their own rolling and skid sounds

Free camera - The mouse camera from the first game is back, rebuilt from scratch: move the mouse to look around your car, no button needed. Double-tap Alt or turn it on in Settings

Shifting in automatic - The shift buttons now work in automatic too: pick your gear for a corner and the gearbox takes over again a few seconds later

Tandem bonus - Drift side by side with another player and your multiplier climbs every two seconds

Faces on the minimap - Other players show up as their Steam avatar with an arrow. Friends get a ring, and anyone out of range sits on the edge pointing the way

Steam profiles - Open any player's Steam profile from the Players page: click their face, right-click their row or press Y

Breakable signs - Road signs, chevrons and roadside posts fall over when you hit them, and everyone in the lobby sees it

Big minimap - Press Z for a large flat minimap that shows 2.5 times as far, and keep driving while you look

Get out - stop at a parking area and press E to step out and walk around in your s&box avatar; E by your car gets you back in

Ride along - walk up to a friend's car and press E at any door

Drop off - the driver lets passengers out from the pause menu, and "Back to my car" takes you home from anywhere

Proximity voice - hold V to talk to the players around you: 15 m on foot, 30 m from a car, muffled through the cabin

Walk up to a car - its plate shows whose it is, the model, its class and horsepower

Drivers - your car and every player's car now have a driver at the wheel, and you see your friends sitting in the seats

Voices - their own volume slider in the sound settings

Driving pays - every kilometre on the road now earns RC, and the faster you go, the more it pays

Odometer - every car in your garage counts its own kilometres

Rivals that learn you - duels quietly adapt to how you drive

Side-by-side starts - you and your rival roll up level before the go, no more starting forty metres behind

A real start - the camera flies down to your car, you turn the key and hear the starter crank before the engine catches

Pick your first car - new drivers choose one of three cars parked at the PA

Cars collide online - trade paint with other players

Pin a job - choose which task stays in the corner of your screen

Distance jobs - a daily "Drive 16 km" and a weekly "Drive 160 km" for those who just like to cruise

Nine new achievements - for distance driven, duel wins, a high-mileage car, finishing the tutorial and a ten-car garage

Rear-view mirror - press R or d-pad down and see who's closing in behind you, live

Pick your mirror - a live picture, or a lights-only mode that shows just the headlights behind you on slower PCs (Graphics settings)

Your money on screen - your balance sits top right while you drive and rolls up as you earn

Always something to chase - jobs show you what to do next and pay you for it

Learn the ropes, get paid - 8 first goals take you from your first 150 km/h all the way to your second car

Daily and weekly jobs - three fresh ones every day and a big one every week, the same for every player

Jobs page in the pause menu - see what's left and when the next ones drop

Rivals come to you - when it's time for your first duel, one tracks you down on the road; flash back and race

Tune any car your way - toe and tyre pressure right from the start

Move the weight around - shift the balance and set how low it sits with the new battery relocation part

More steering lock - fit the angle kit and dial in the lock for your drift build

Garage lights at night - your car under a lamp after dark

A soundtrack that drives with you - silence when you stop, the beat kicks in as you pick up speed

Chill music in the garage - laid-back tracks while you build

Zoom the chase camera - scroll the mouse wheel to pull in close or show more of the road

An open island - 8 by 8 km and 117 km of road: an expressway loop, a mountain pass, coast roads, villages and a harbour town

Places worth the drive - a race circuit, a drag strip, a dam, an onsen village, a fishing harbour and lookouts over the sea

Day and night - a full day takes 48 minutes, and after dark street lights, windows and headlights come on by themselves

Weather - clouds, rain, thunderstorms and fog, the same for everyone in the session; rain leaves puddles and spray on the road

Traffic - cars keep left on every road, and you choose how busy it gets

Rivals in traffic - flash your lights twice beside one to call them out; their bar drains as they fall behind, and the winner takes the money

Duels with other players - the same flash and the same bars, played for bragging rights

Money for driving well - drifts, near misses past traffic and won duels all pay

42 cars in the showroom - from a delivery van to a 9.1 million supercar, with JDM legends in between

38 engines - each with its own voice

Several of the same car - buy another copy and give each its own build

Lights that work - headlights light the road, pop-ups flip up, turn signals blink and dashboards glow at night

Upgrades in 9 slots, 4 stages each - a full stage 4 build doubles the power

Body kits on their own shelves - bumpers, spoilers, grilles, intercoolers, exhaust tips and more

A livery editor - 531 shapes, 37 fonts and up to 3000 stickers on one car

Neon underglow - it flickers to life like real tubes

The car answers back - it squats on its springs as parts go on, and paint hisses from a spray can

Every drive is online - friends can join your island at any time through s&box

Players page in the pause menu - who is on the island, what they drive and how far away they are

Shared traffic - everyone in the session sees the same cars in the same places

Straight into the driver's seat - no menus, the game opens with you parked and ready

Menus that sound like a car - an indicator relay ticks as you move, the handbrake clicks the pause menu open, central locking seals a purchase

A minimap and a full map of the island - press M

Steering wheels with force feedback - through Steering Hub

Six languages - English, Russian, German, Spanish, Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

Wind and tyre roar that build as you go faster - a rush outside the car, a low rumble from the cockpit

The world streaks past when you push on, while the car stays sharp in the middle of the screen

Loud pipes crackle on a trailing throttle - stock stays quiet, the loudest ones spit the most

The flame shows what you heard: a short lick for a crackle, a long one for a bang

Settings has a "steering wheel" group: the wheel itself, Force 0-200%, Clutch, and Gear lever. Until now the only way to switch a wheel on was a console command

The wheel row reports the live state of the link — no hub, no wheel picked, not calibrated, muted, or the wheel's name and its degrees of rotation