Get the Low Down on JDM: Japanese Drift Master

 Petrolheads rejoice. “Simcade” Kaido-racing title JDM: Japanese Drift Master from Warsaw-based studio Gaming Factory is revving up to launch next month. Krzysztof Bosko, producer and creative director of JDM, executed a perfect slide into the offices of Intel Gaming Access to invite us, and you, to the streets of Japan where chassis are so low they could kiss the asphalt and a super-sized tail pipe can touch the sky.

Bosko climbed into the driving seat of the project two years ago and—true to the Japanese maestros of car-modding the game draws inspiration from—began a complete transformation. “I changed the approach to events, the world design, the cars, the way the player is guided through the campaign, and even the story itself, which my team and I rewrote from scratch to fit the atmosphere we aimed to create perfectly.”

Custom Model

This pursuit of atmospheric authenticity led the team to create a fictional prefecture, Guntama, a distance-defying mash-up and celebration of real-life locations. “Guntama is packed with locations inspired by real-life Japan,” Bosko explains. “A keen eye will recognize dozens of them. But what truly makes it feel authentic isn’t just these landmarks—it’s the entire philosophy and approach behind designing Guntama. Narrow roads, traffic lights set up differently than in Europe, road markings on the asphalt, ambient sounds recorded in Japan, and even the biotope [habitat]—all contribute to the immersion.”

And it’s a very particular subculture you’re immersed in, which helps JDM stand out in the racing genre. Bosko agrees. “What sets us apart? Our commitment to realism in world-building, our deep focus on Japanese car culture and tuning, and the way we present our story in manga form—a tribute to the art style we admire.”

“At its core,” Bosko continues, “JDM is about celebrating motorsport culture. Whether you prefer simulation or arcade racing, there’s something here for you. Some players will want to master their drifting skills, others will enjoy simply driving through Guntama and taking in the world, and some will get fully immersed in the story and campaign. It’s not just a game for hardcore petrolheads who love tuning (though they’ll find plenty to enjoy, with around 3,000 visual customization parts available). JDM is designed to be an exciting experience for a wide range of players.”

Beyond the Bodywork

Any aspiring Hashiriya (street racer) is going to want to head straight for the JDM paint shop, where you can choose from iconic Japanese auto brands and personalize them in true Kaido style. The perfect paint job doesn’t guarantee the perfect drift, however; that’s where performance and control come in. “Frame rates are something every developer fights for,” Bosko affirms. “Players have expectations, and they deserve to have them met. Not every aspect of a game’s vision will appeal to everyone—that’s normal. But performance is measurable, and it has to meet a certain standard. We keep working on it until it does.” That’s an approach we can get behind, and did.

“We received a plugin for Unreal Engine 4 that helped us properly detect graphics cards,” Bosko says, “and overall, the process was remarkably straightforward—pretty much plug-and-play. The performance of JDM when using IntelⓇ Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) turned out to be significantly improved beyond our expectations. The hardware we received was invaluable in testing the application’s performance. Our collaboration with Intel has been smooth and enjoyable. Beyond providing us with hardware and plugins, they also offer consultation, which I personally appreciate the most … getting Intel’s reference hardware was the most important aspect for testing, and for our highly efficient QA department.”

Was everything as smooth as a Kaido-style slide, or were there some challenges along the way? “One major challenge was updating the physics engine when transitioning to Unreal Engine 5,” Bosko recalls. “We solved this by carefully wrapping Chaos Physics calls and closely monitoring telemetry data during synchronous and asynchronous substepping tests. After many trials, we reached a level of performance where the physics remained perfectly consistent with our previous UE4 implementation. Another challenge was optimizing the game’s memory usage and streaming performance so it could run smoothly on handheld devices like the MSI Claw. This required fine-tuning the UI, textures, and VRAM management to ensure the game could run efficiently on Intel-based hardware.”

Go Time

With challenges met, performance tuned, and creative engines running, Gaming Factory is ready to drop the flag on JDM… a few things remain under wraps, however. “With the launch just around the corner,” Bosko says, “we don’t want to give too much away. We’re approaching the moment of truth, and that excites me. We want players to discover surprises on their own—there’s nothing better than watching gameplay clips where someone stumbles upon a location they always wanted to see or one that reminds them of something they may have seen in real life.”

What they don’t mind us sharing is that as you immerse yourself in this unique subculture, you can choose to hone your racing skills in time trials, intense drift manoeuvres, head-to-head battles, and drag showdowns. And all this while tales of friendship, rivalry, emotion, and ambition unfold over 40 story challenges. “Beyond delivering a massive game at launch,” Bosko says, “we plan to fully support and expand it over the next few years. Our current roadmap includes two years of post-launch development, adding new tracks, cars, tuning options, multiplayer features, and various event types.”

You would think that would be all Gaming Factory has time for, right now. But Bosko and the team (pictured below) have other ideas. Gaming Factory has a discrete Unity crew working on a new game, currently titled Pizza Slice, and that’s alongside the planned JDM DLCs and updates. “After JDM’s release, Gaming Factory has no intention of slowing down,” Bosko assures us. Spoken like a true Hashiriya. 

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