Level-R was originally developed for the Japanese market in 2006 and was based on Cross Racing Championship Extreme 2005.

Invictus Games Ltd. signed a deal with Innologin Ltd. to publish a new North American service of Level-R, called HEAT Online.

In August 2019, fans of Level-R and Project Torque started a crowdfunding campaign for $10,000 to get the game back online.

[3] The funds were supposed to cover contract and legal fees for gaining the publishing rights to Project Torque from Invictus Games.

[4] The campaign goal was reached[3] and in late August 2019 Jogara Ltd., a fan-run company, signed the publishing contract, with the game being re-released on Steam in December 2019.

[5] CTF and Drift modes were removed from the original game after the release of Julia build on June 3, 2010, but were reinstated in the 2019 re-release.

It is one of the most popular modes of Project Torque and includes three classes of cars: Rookie, Pro, and Intimidator.

Drag is a mode where 2–4 players line up in a quarter or a half mile strip to smoke some rubber and see who is the fastest racer.

The difference is, that the optional "no collision" system ( called ghost mode) is always enabled and the players start at the same position instead of distributed on a grid.

This ticket can only be bought with GP or found with much luck in the explorer mode when picking up a question mark token.

In October 2009, Invictus (the developer of the game) issued an IP ban of all non-US accounts on Project Torque.

[9] Aeria Games & Entertainment (AGE) had to comply with the IP ban, and as a result the player base of Project Torque dramatically decreased.

[citation needed] This means that Project Torque would not receive anymore special builds from Invictus.

[11] There was much criticism from the build as it was similar to the Level-R version, and the patch removed all the unique features that had made Project Torque popular.

Swift World rated Project Torque a 7/10 for great gameplay, but mentioned the lack of players during the time.

"[15] He noted that the game had great graphics, was able to run on low-end PCs, and had a simple solution to connection-lag during races.

The decision to shut down the servers took effect on July 31, 2010, with the forums (except for general discussion section) being closed the next day.