It serves as the spiritual successor to Bizarre's Metropolis Street Racer and retains the Kudos system, which awards points for driving skills and style, necessary for progression rather than solely finishing races in first place.

There are a total of 29 licensed cars in Project Gotham Racing,[2] ranging from the initially available Mini Cooper-S, Toyota MR2 Spyder, and Mercedes-Benz SLK 320 to the high-end Ferrari F50 and Porsche Carrera GT.

Bizarre Creations did not receive the financial return from Metropolis Street Racer, which was over-budget, late to market, and released shortly before the discontinuation of the Dreamcast hardware.

[7] The Kudos mechanic also underwent slight changes in Project Gotham Racing, with points awarded based on the best attempt from multiple tries, rather than the risk-and-reward system used in Metropolis Street Racer.

[8] NextGen stated that the game "has enough gloss, variety, and originality to compete with the genre's best and give speedfreaks a great reason to jump on the Xbox bandwagon.

The final main title, Project Gotham Racing 4, was released around the time Bizarre Creations was acquired by Activision.

Following this acquisition, Bizarre Creations announced that PGR4 would be the last game produced for Microsoft,[27] effectively leading to Forza Motorsport replacing it as Xbox's flagship racing franchise.