EA SPORTS WRC Review

It’s finally here, the game many DIRT Rally 2.0 fans have been waiting for — the licensed outing of the sport from rally aficionado Codemasters. Despite having numerous other rally-based games under its belt, this marks the first time since the dawn of the millennium that the licence has made its way to the studio. A studio which has firmly established itself as having probably the best modern rally videogame experience with DIRT Rally 2.0, just shy of five years ago. So, taking advantage of their history, how well can they put together a rally title with an official licence..?

First up, let’s dive straight into what’s going to make or break this game — its physics how it feels on a wheel and controller, and how it feels as a driver. Despite the game being ported from Codemasters’ in-house EGO engine over to Unreal Engine, the physics themselves have been ported over from DIRT Rally 2.0 with further tweaks to improve them with input from Jon Armstrong, someone who is not only part of the team at Codemasters but also a decorated real-world driver in the sport, giving them a one-to-one interface with how a car should handle in different scenarios, and it appears to be paying off. Gravel handling feels sublime as ever, as does snow, but the one most people had issues with previously, tarmac, is a lot more responsive now rather than the slippier feeling from DR2.0, where it felt like tarmac always had a decent covering of dust, causing some odd wheel slippage.

It handles great on both the wheel and controller; where I spent maybe an hour or two with it on the controller and the rest of my time with it on the wheel (Fanatec DD1, SQ1.5 in sequential mode, handbrake, and CSL V3 pedals), and the out of the box experience of force feedback is good, making the cars feel chuckable around the courses with confidence and ease. With the inclusion of the Rally School feature and various amounts of assists, it manages to remain accessible to those less experienced with the ins and outs of rallying, meaning anyone can hop in and have a go. There’s even the option to simplify the co-driver callouts to make it easier to understand for new players — it caters excellently to all skill levels.

With this being EA, however, it would be remiss not to mention monetisation, or refreshingly, the (almost) lack of it. There’s no deluxe version with cars locked behind it nor an already announced DLC that will further paywall things. All we know at the moment is that the Central European courses will come in a future update for free and that some of the “Moments” (set challenges that are either interesting situations devised by the developers or based on or inspired by real-life events) are for EA Play subscribers. More of these will be added to the game over time, but they don’t ever expire or become unplayable, so if you wanted, you can hop into a month of EA Play at any time to enjoy those additional moments. £3.99 (at the current time of writing) is a small price to pay compared to some other EA titles if you want some additional challenges to beat.

With the shift to Unreal Engine though, there’s a tradeoff to be had from Codemasters’ tried and tested EGO engine, which seems to be some infrequent frame drops. Possibly as it’s loading in textures or sound effects — it was hard to pin down to either, but going off track seemed to be the way in which it manifested, though it didn’t affect the gameplay all that much. Ultimately, I was already in the trees, so I couldn’t blame it for my failings. The flipside, though, is that we now have stages of nearly 20 miles in length, putting a real demand on your abilities as a driver over a longer period than we’ve had before, and that’s worth much more long-term, as performance issues can hopefully be patched.

Cars sound raw and throaty like you’d expect, and the subtle ambience of the crowd cheering you on through to the grass rustling when you take a detour through the hedges adds all of the additional detail to keep the stages feeling alive. This, plus a largely electronic soundtrack, should keep the adrenaline pumping between races. Otherwise, there is not much else to say about the game from an audio standpoint.

What’s nice to see is that even though this is a licenced title, the game still has space for old favourites in terms of cars, like the fan favourites of the Subaru Impreza and Mitsubishi Evo, to cars like the late Colin McRae’s R4, a passion project he was developing to improve the economics of running a rally car, whilst also improving the safety. Old classics, such as the now banned Group B Lancia Delta S4, to more subtle affairs like the Ford Escort MK2 or Hillman Avenger, also make appearances. Something I’m glad to see hasn't been left behind in the licence shuffle!

Overall, with the tie-in to Codemasters’ Racenet offerings, this could be a very tantalising platform for those with an eye for running online leagues. With everything built into the game from the ground up to support a community that might not always be able to race with one another at the same time, features that were there in DIRT Rally 2.0, but never seemed to get the recognition they deserved at the time, the new Racenet looks and feels much more slick than before. Maybe we’ll even see some eSports competitions with this at the helm!