The complete Amiga Lotus Racing trilogy has arrived on Linux and Windows

There are plenty of ways to play an old racing game on a modern PC. Nelumbo takes a slightly different route. Released by Almost There Games, it’s a modern reimplementation of the three Lotus games originally released on the Commodore Amiga: Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 and Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge. All three are included, each presented as its own campaign rather than being folded into one large remake. The basic idea hasn’t changed. Pick a car, hit the road and deal with traffic, corners, hills, changing surfaces and whatever the game decides to throw at you next. What has changed is everything around it.

Three Lotus games, one package

The Lotus series started in 1990 with Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, developed by Magnetic Fields and published by Gremlin Graphics. Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 followed in 1991, with Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge arriving a year later. The games shared the same fast behind-the-car racing style, but each entry changed the structure enough to feel distinct. Nelumbo keeps that separation.

You can play through each game as its own campaign, complete with the different courses, scenery, hazards and race formats attached to that particular entry. It doesn’t attempt to turn the trilogy into a single modern career mode, and it doesn’t add layers of progression that weren’t part of the original design.

That’s probably the sensible approach. Lotus was always straightforward. Get moving, avoid trouble and reach the next checkpoint before the clock becomes a problem.

The racing is still fast and unforgiving

The road is where most of the action happens. Traffic regularly gets in the way, competing cars take up valuable space, and hills can hide whatever’s waiting on the other side. At higher speeds, that can mean spotting a corner or obstacle with very little time to react.

Different surfaces also affect the car, while stages shift between forests, mountains, cities, marshes and night-time roads. It’s arcade racing in the most direct sense.

Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge established much of the formula, including its split-screen racing. Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 moved towards point-to-point stages and made changing conditions a bigger part of the experience. Lotus III then mixed ideas from both earlier games while adding new locations, courses and another car.

Nelumbo doesn’t try to rewrite those differences. It keeps them. Even the name has a Lotus connection. Nelumbo is the botanical genus that includes the plants commonly known as lotus.

Widescreen changes how much you can see

The most immediately noticeable difference is the screen itself. Nelumbo supports modern widescreen and ultrawide resolutions, giving the road considerably more space than you’d have seen on an original Amiga display. The graphics still use the recognisable pixel-art look of the originals, but there’s now a wider view of the surroundings and more road visible ahead.

Draw distance has been increased too. That’s a bigger change than it might sound. Lotus regularly uses hills, bends and roadside obstacles to limit what you can see. Being able to look further down the road changes how early you can react without changing the basic layout of the stages.

Higher frame rates also make the scrolling and movement smoother. The presentation hasn’t been rebuilt with modern 3D models or new visual effects. Cars, scenery and interface elements still look deliberately close to the Amiga games. Nelumbo simply gives them more screen space to work with. Audio has received some attention as well. Music and sound effects can now play together, rather than forcing the sort of compromises associated with the original hardware.

Controllers and racing wheels are supported

Controls are another area where Nelumbo moves beyond the original setup. The game supports keyboard controls, analogue gamepads and racing wheels, with rumble available on compatible hardware.

You don’t need specialist equipment, obviously. The Lotus games were designed around simple digital controls in the first place, and Nelumbo hasn’t suddenly turned them into driving simulators. The steering remains arcade-focused.

Still, having analogue control and wheel support gives PC players more options, particularly if they’ve already got a controller permanently plugged in. Two-player local multiplayer is also included, keeping the split-screen side of Lotus intact.

Nelumbo adds high-score tracking, achievements and progress-saving features too. None of that changes how Lotus plays, but it does make the package behave more like something built to run on a current PC rather than software launched in the early 1990s.

Nelumbo is available on Windows and Linux

Nelumbo launched in August 2026 and is available for Windows and Linux. The game has already received several updates since release, with version 1.1.4 available at the time of writing. At its core, though, the pitch is simple.

This is Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 and Lotus III collected inside one modern application, with widescreen resolutions, longer draw distances, smoother output and support for current controllers. The games themselves remain recognisable. They’re still fast arcade racers about traffic, timing and learning what’s coming over the next hill. Nelumbo just gives the trilogy a PC setup that doesn’t expect you to be sitting in front of an Amiga.

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