[2] The Kudos system, challenges set, available cars, and the tracks around which players race were expanded greatly from the original.

Project Gotham Racing 2 is now playable online again on the replacement Xbox Live servers called Insignia.

Binning the previous cities, the game features Hong Kong, Barcelona, Moscow, Edinburgh, Washington DC, Chicago, Florence, Sydney, Yokohama, Stockholm and Nurburgring, designed to be as close as possible to real-life.

[7] There are four main parts to the single player game: Kudos World Series, Arcade Racing and Time Attack.

Each car is made from around 10,000 polygons[8] and was recorded with eight microphones in order to accurately replicate engine, turbo, exhaust, and transmission sound in-game.

In both styles circuits and cars may only be chosen if they have previously been unlocked in kudos world series or arcade racing.

Challenges are divided into five difficulties: Steel (novice), Bronze (easy), Silver (medium), Gold (hard), and Platinum (expert).

Within the player's car garage, an arcade cabinet can be interacted with to play the classic minigame Geometry Wars, a top-down multidirectional shooter.