Kunos Simulazioni: Co-Founder Stefano Casillo Rejoins Studio

Stefano Casillo Rejoins Kunos.jpg
Image: Kunos Simulazioni
Kunos Simulazioni is getting the band back together, it seems: Co-Founder Stefano Casillo rejoins the Italian studio after a five-year absence.

The Assetto Corsa franchise has become a pillar of the sim racing world: 2014's original title continues to amaze players to this day, of course carried by its near endless selection of mods. Assetto Corsa Competizione is a shining example for a simulator focused on a particular category of racing cars, and Assetto Corsa EVO is looking to break new ground by incorporating an open world in a proper sim.

All three titles are the work of Kunos Simulazioni, founded by Marco Massarutto, who is still the studio's Managing Director, and Stefano Casillo. The latter left the company in 2020 to pursue his own endeavour called Jaxx Vane Studio, focusing on creating a hydrofoil sailing title.

Stefano Casillo Rejoins Kunos LinkedIn.jpg

Image: Stefano Casillo on LinkedIn

In early March 2025, Casillo might have just pulled off the sim racing comeback of the year already: According to an update to his LinkedIn profile, he has rejoined Kunos Simulazioni as Chief Technology Officer. Whether or not this means that Jaxx Vane Studio will take the back seat now remains to be seen, but the position at Kunos is full-time, according to the update.

Stefano himself is happy to be back: "This happened very fast and all I can say is that I am super happy and excited to be back at work with my old friends. I missed the action of having fun with a wheel in my hands and I love what they have been doing with EVO and the vision behind it", he told OverTake.

About 20 years after Kunos being founded, Massarutto and Casillo now reunite just after AC EVO has started its Early Access program. With the aim to have the sim ready for its full release in fall of 2025, this should be a good amount of time for Stefano, who tends to pop into the comment sections of OverTake articles from time to time, to use his strengths in the development of the sim.

Are you excited to see Stefano Casillo rejoin Kunos Simulazioni? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our Assetto Corsa EVO forum!
About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

Headlines?

pffft.

We now have rage arguments based on what memes are telling us.
What rage?
I was not even angry. I only used his word
(sh!t).
But it maybe was written wrong and thats my fault and apologize for that.
Have a awesome day :)
 
What does a CTO do and isn't kind of late to hire one at this stage of development?
At this stage of development and considering this is early access, his role would be to get sure the dev and testing ressources are working on the priorities. Bug fixes, new features and process to deploy all that
 
Premium
Maybe you should try learning how to read...

I said it has a chance because it's not on a vaporware engine...

It's obviously years away from being something interesting... But it's got a chance because it's not on the Need For Speed engine...

But hey, keep randomly showing your fragile ego for no reason... Some people enjoy their popcorn... :whistling: :roflmao:
I'm unsure about this 'vaporware' engine you're talking about, can you be more clear, you're obviously 'dissing' some studio but I can't make out which one, so humour me and spill the beans on what it is that you're talking about.
After all, if it's bad, we, 'as the wheelie bins with the lid open we are' should be forewarned. 🤔
 
I'm unsure about this 'vaporware' engine you're talking about, can you be more clear, you're obviously 'dissing' some studio but I can't make out which one, so humour me and spill the beans on what it is that you're talking about.
After all, if it's bad, we, 'as the wheelie bins with the lid open we are' should be forewarned. 🤔

Oh I'll spell it out clearer for you... It's technically 2 studios and my reasoning for mentioning it was because of the engine problems that Kunos had with Unreal... But it's not the Unreal engine... That might have potential with a different physics engine grafted to it...

The vaporware engine in question had a AAA budget for almost a decade thanks to Need for Speed Shift 2 and pCARS before it was sold off to Electronic Arts who canned it because it was too buggy and required too much work to fix... The Madness engine...

This is why I have more hope for ACE with it's 5 years of development than AMS2 with it's similar development time frame despite the lack of content... The engine is the core of a simulations limitations and how much that impacts the fun I can foresee myself having... I have a small glimmer of hope that Reiza will eventually figure it out now that PMR is even further away thanks to another engine switch, but Kunos have a head start because it's their own engine that doesn't have a decade plus of being buggy to it's history...

With ACE I have a similar level of hope as I do in LMU... Because they've stripped back the engine before rebuilding on top whilst having limited content that's a lot easier to implement in both cases... ACE has just had a lot longer development and under a more stable developer so should be further ahead than where it is... But hopefully as the pieces of the puzzle come together and as modders get into it and complete the hodge podge miss match of cars that will be in ACE, then it could be what people are hyping it up to be...

Until then it's a novel little tech demo which I've had before and moved on from twice now with Kunos... AC only got me back after the community fixed up it's many missing features...
 
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Premium
Oh I'll spell it out clearer for you... It's technically 2 studios and my reasoning for mentioning it was because of the engine problems that Kunos had with Unreal... But it's not the Unreal engine... That might have potential with a different physics engine grafted to it...

The vaporware engine in question had a AAA budget for almost a decade thanks to Need for Speed Shift 2 and pCARS before it was sold off to Electronic Arts who canned it because it was too buggy and required too much work to fix... The Madness engine...

This is why I have more hope for ACE with it's 5 years of development than AMS2 with it's similar development time frame despite the lack of content... The engine is the core of a simulations limitations and how much that impacts the fun I can foresee myself having... I have a small glimmer of hope that Reiza will eventually figure it out now that PMR is even further away thanks to another engine switch, but Kunos have a head start because it's their own engine that doesn't have a decade plus of being buggy to it's history...

With ACE I have a similar level of hope as I do in LMU... Because they've stripped back the engine before rebuilding on top whilst having limited content that's a lot easier to implement in both cases... ACE has just had a lot longer development and under a more stable developer so should be further ahead than where it is... But hopefully as the pieces of the puzzle come together and as modders get into it and complete the hodge podge miss match of cars that will be in ACE, then it could be what people are hyping it up to be...

Until then it's a novel little tech demo which I've had before and moved on from twice now with Kunos... AC only got me back after the community fixed up it's many missing features...
Thank you for being clear, however, the madness engine isn't vaporware, it may be buggy and it may have caused many issues, but it's still not vaporwear.
I guess that PMR is one you'd best avoid.
 
Thank you for being clear, however, the madness engine isn't vaporware, it may be buggy and it may have caused many issues, but it's still not vaporwear.
I guess that PMR is one you'd best avoid.

Oh it's vaporware for sim racing... Makes Forza Motorsports look good in terms of simulation level and in terms of reliability... Reiza have done magical wonders getting it to where it is now in terms of simulation, but it's still a fair way off of the competition because of it's roots as a Need for Speed focused engine with a heavily simplified rF1 physics code...

That engine should of stuck to consoles only as varied chipsets on the PC market shows it's flaws... AMS2 has all the content to contend with BeamNG or AC for player numbers but struggles for obvious reasons... It's too buggy offline and online to keep players...

The rF2 engine has similar chipset issues surrounding AMD mostly and both share a similar base from where their physics were taken... The pmotor of rF1... The rF2 engine just ticks more simulation boxes so is higher regarded by those whose opinions matter to me... Those in the industry of motorsports, mechanical engineering and mechanics...
 
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The graphical rendering engine has nothing to do with the physics scripts, apart from that it can somewhat influence your CPU budget, which can limit the complexity/tickrate of the models, although generally the simulation stuff is CPU limited, while modern rendering is GPU limited.

re: rF2 engine, I have heard of a total of zero people using the physics professionally. I know of one student who used it for a model.

Industry mostly uses rFPro, so they can hook their own model in. 0% similarity with rF2.

Well, I say mostly, but AC is the most used platform, proprietary rFPro stuff is more for the OEMs and higher budget programs AFAIK. Last I checked, Toyota uses it for self driving car modeling.
 
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