CAR MECHANIC SIMULATOR 2025: EVERYTHING WE KNOW

I want to clear something up before we get into anything else, because I've seen the same question on Reddit threads, Steam discussions, and one very confused Discord server I lurk in. There is no Car Mechanic Simulator 2025. The series jumped from CMS 2021 straight to CMS 2026, and a lot of people spent the last twelve months waiting for a release that was never on the calendar. If you typed "Car Mechanic Simulator 2025" into a search bar and ended up here, congratulations, you're in good company. Half the wrenching corner of the internet did the same thing.

So let me actually walk through what's going on with the next CMS, what's confirmed, what's still rumor-grade, and why the franchise is in this slightly weird limbo right now.

Why everyone assumed there was a 2025

PlayWay loves their year-stamped releases. Car Mechanic Simulator 2014, 2015, 2018, 2021. Every two or three years, a new number, a bigger car list, a fresh coat of graphical paint. After 2021 dropped, the math felt obvious. 2024 or 2025 was the next slot, and people started writing wishlist posts and YouTube videos about features they wanted to see in CMS 2024, then CMS 2025 when 2024 came and went without an announcement.

What actually happened is that Red Dot Games and PlayWay stretched the development cycle further than usual. CMS 2021 got DLC packs for years, including pretty meaty ones for Mercedes, Ford, Dodge, and Pagani, and the team apparently used the extra runway to scope the next mainline game bigger than originally planned. The gap between numbered releases ended up being five years instead of three, which is the longest stretch the series has ever had.

The end result is that the next entry is officially called Car Mechanic Simulator 2026, and it shows up on Steam already with a store page, screenshots, and a feature list. So when I'm talking about "the next CMS" for the rest of this post, that's what I mean. The 2025 label exists in our heads. It does not exist on the box.

What's actually confirmed for the next game

The Steam listing and a handful of dev posts give us a real feature spine, not just speculation. Co-op multiplayer is the headline. You can run a garage with a friend, splitting jobs or working on the same car together. This is the single thing fans have been asking for since CMS 2018. The series has always been a solo experience, and watching your buddy ratchet through a transmission swap while you're under the hood with a torque wrench sounds like exactly the kind of stupid fun the genre was missing.

There's a new modular engine system. The official description talks about swapping components more freely, which I read as the game finally letting you mix and match parts across different motors instead of treating each engine as a closed box. If they nail this, engine swaps could become a legitimate gameplay loop instead of a scripted side activity.

Repairs are getting an overhaul too, with optional minigames layered into the wrenching. I have mixed feelings about this one. The CMS audience splits hard between people who want more sim and people who want more arcade, and minigames usually annoy the sim crowd while doing very little for the arcade crowd. The "optional" part of that announcement is doing a lot of work. If you can disable them, fine. If they're tied to progression, expect forum drama.

A day and night cycle is in, with time-skip functionality so you don't have to wait through real-time hours to get to the next part of your day. Garage customization is getting expanded with decorative elements, which is the kind of soft system that doesn't sound exciting but ends up eating fifty hours of your life once you start arranging tool chests and posters.

The vehicle selling system is being rebuilt. Instant sales or market trades are both options, which sounds like they're borrowing a page from Car for Sale Simulator. That's interesting because it pulls CMS slightly into shop-sim territory, where you're not just fixing cars but also flipping them for profit.

The advertised car count is 150 plus, with 500 plus configurations and 8000 plus parts. CMS 2021 launched with 72 cars and around 4000 parts, so this is genuinely a doubling of content. Whether all of those configurations are meaningfully different or whether half of them are color swaps and trim variants, we'll find out.

What's still rumor or speculation

Graphics are the area where I'm most cautious about claims. The Steam page shows screenshots that look noticeably better than CMS 2021, with what appears to be improved lighting, better paint shaders, and more detailed engine bays. The recommended specs jumped to RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT, which suggests they've moved to a more modern rendering pipeline. But "looks better in screenshots" and "looks better in motion" are different things, and I want to see actual gameplay footage in 4K before I get excited about the visual leap.

There's been chatter about VR support, but PlayWay hasn't confirmed it. CMS 2021 never got official VR despite years of community requests, so I'd put the odds of CMS 2026 launching with native VR at low. Could it come later as DLC or a free update? Maybe. But don't preorder expecting it.

Mod support is another big question. The current game has a strong modding scene, especially for cars and tuning parts, and breaking that ecosystem with a new engine could split the community. Red Dot Games has talked vaguely about mod tools but hasn't shown anything concrete. If they release CMS 2026 without first-class mod support, expect a lot of people to just stay on 2021.

Career mode is presumably returning, but the structure is unclear. The current game has a job board where customers bring in cars with described problems, and you progress by completing them, leveling up your skills, and unlocking new tools. Whether that loop is preserved as-is or replaced with something more ambitious, the marketing has been quiet.

How CMS 2021 still holds up

I keep coming back to CMS 2021 because it's the baseline everyone is judging the next game against, and it's worth being honest about its strengths and weaknesses.

The good. The job loop is genuinely satisfying. A customer drops off a car, you diagnose it, you order parts, you fix it, you get paid. There's something deeply soothing about the rhythm of that, especially with a podcast on in the background. The variety of cars is solid, the parts are detailed enough to feel real, and the diagnostic process forces you to think rather than just clicking through prompts.

The frustrating. The economy is weirdly tuned. You hit a wall around the mid game where you've maxed out your useful skills and you're just grinding money for cosmetic upgrades. The path system, where you walk between car lifts and your computer, gets old fast. Test drives are technically present but feel tacked on, and the open world they added is pretty but mostly empty. The barn finds and abandoned car missions are great the first ten times and tedious by the fiftieth.

The DLC strategy. PlayWay's approach to DLC is the running joke of the simulator world. They release a base game and then ten dollar car packs forever. Some are good. Some are three cars and a paint job. Buying everything for CMS 2021 costs more than the original game by a wide margin, and there's no reason to expect CMS 2026 will be different. If you're new to the series, wait for a Steam sale and pick the packs you actually want.

The shop sim genre around it

CMS doesn't exist in a vacuum. The shop and business simulator genre has exploded in the last few years, and CMS sits at an interesting spot in that ecosystem. On one side you've got pure shop sims like Supermarket Simulator and Gas Station Simulator, where the appeal is running a business and watching numbers go up. On the other side you've got hands-on tactile sims like House Flipper and PowerWash Simulator, where the appeal is doing the work itself.

CMS straddles both. You're running a garage as a business, but you're also physically removing bolts and swapping parts. That hybrid is rare and hard to do well, which is part of why the series has stayed dominant in the auto-repair niche despite competitors trying to chip away at it. My Garage exists. Wrench exists. Car For Sale Simulator 2023 exists. None of them have managed to capture the full loop the way CMS does.

The 2018 game is still floating around as a cheaper entry point if you want to see what the series feels like without committing to the 2021 prices and DLC stack.

What I want from the new game

Since we're speculating, let me put my own wishlist on the table.

Better diagnosis. The current game telegraphs problems too aggressively. Customer says brakes feel weird, you go to the brake page, the bad part is glowing red. I want to actually have to test things, drive the car, listen for noises, look for fluid leaks. Make me work for the answer.

Persistent damage and consequences. If I screw up an installation, I want to deal with it later. Loose bolts, wrong torque, missed steps that cause future failures. The current game just tells you when you've messed up. I'd rather discover it three jobs later when the customer brings the car back angry.

A real reason to test drive. Right now the test drive is a checkbox. Give me a route with specific things to test. Highway speed for vibration, tight turns for steering pull, hard braking for pedal feel. Make the test drive part of the diagnostic process, not a victory lap.

Less DLC chaos. Just sell me the game. Bundle the cars. Stop nickel and diming. I know this won't happen because PlayWay's whole business model is built on the DLC drip, but a man can hope.

The honest take on whether to wait

If you've never played CMS before and you want to scratch the wrenching itch right now, CMS 2021 is genuinely good and frequently goes on sale for under ten bucks. The DLC stack is overwhelming but you can ignore most of it and still have a great time with the base game.

If you've already played CMS 2021 to death and you're trying to decide whether to wait for the new release, I'd hold off on buying any more 2021 DLC. The new game is close enough that throwing thirty bucks at car packs now feels wasteful when you'll be getting a much bigger roster in the next entry anyway.

If you're hoping CMS 2026 fixes everything that frustrates you about the current game, manage expectations. PlayWay is iterative, not revolutionary. The next game will be bigger, prettier, and probably more fun, but the core loop is going to feel familiar. That's not a knock. Familiar is what people keep buying.

The fact that we collectively invented a 2025 release that never existed says something about how much demand there is for this exact kind of game. Auto repair is a near-perfect simulator subject. Discrete tasks, clear progression, satisfying completion. As long as Red Dot Games keeps making these, people will keep wrenching, and I'll keep finding excuses to spend a Saturday afternoon rebuilding a virtual carburetor instead of doing literally anything else productive.