TLDR
Not trying to hype here. The game is looking a little low in the wow factor so far, but I'm still pretty excited.
This guy really covers it well, especially his outro of questions.
Those into their rally games will know that Dirt Rally 1 & 2 were a bit of a thing.
What started as Codemasters' Colin McRae series back on the PSX ended up evolving and splitting into the DiRT series, and the two DiRT Rally games. The Dirt series took the arcade approach, while Dirt Rally 1 & 2.0 went for the simulation angle.
Competing with DR2 were the recent games from Kylotonn's WRC series. During the 4 years that passed without a DR2 sequel, a new WRC was spawned annually: 8, 9, 10, and Generations.
I believe WRC 10 was ultimately regarded by many as the one to finally beat Dirt Rally 2, though putting the two side by side was always more a matter of contrasts rather than comparisons. Real-life tracks, or interesting tracks? Visual variety or visual quality? Tight routes, or big freedom to go off-track? Rallycross or a decent career mode? Etc. etc. Dirt Rally 2.0 was really lacking heavily in some areas that the WRC series always picked up on, but at the same time there was always a consistency to DR2 that just seemed to keep it as the more respected game. Until WRC 10 at least.
I think I'm trying not to make this the internet's one millionth post comparing the two games. I actually only tried WRC 9. For me, there was no comparison. The things WRC 9 did good were pretty good, but the things it did bad were terrible.
Anyway, point is I loved Dirt Rally 2.0; nearly 1000 hours on it. I also hated it because it's hard and I am godawful at it. But that works for me.
And finally, it's getting its sequel which is called, perhaps confusingly, EA Sports WRC.
Kylotonn's contract on the WRC license expired in 2022, so Codemasters now have their hands on it once again, for the first time in 20 years, meaning that the guys who were making the WRC games then competing with the WRC games are now making the WRC games again, and everyone who's been waiting for that Dirt Rally 2.0 sequel (like me) is finally getting it. FINALLY.
One last tidbit for what I admit is a boring preamble. This game was expected to release earlier this year, but it just kind of disappeared. Then suddenly, a couple of weeks ago, it's suddenly here and announced inside Dirt Rally 2.0. It's happening, and it's about 6 weeks away.
Sept 7th: Reveal Trailer
- At a glance, the visuals definitely don't look much of a leap beyond DR2. But we'll see.
- Also appears to be continuing the DR2 approach of reality-based stages rather than fake stages in the name of visual variety.
Sept 20th: Gameplay Deep Dive
- I think EA doesn't know what the words "deep dive" mean.
- Confirms that everything in the game is indeed from real life.
- Over 80 cars: 78 from real life and 3 vehicle classes with which you can make your own builds. See below for the full list.
- Some stages that are over 30km. That's pretty awesome; DR2 only got up to about 16km, and even DR1's entire Hill Climb was only 20km. Getting some 30km rally stages in WRC is honestly really epic. That's like 25 minutes of sweating. I hate it yet I want it.
- Stages can move between 4 seasons now. Interesting. I wonder if each season will still have multiple weather and time options.
- Running in Unreal now; a huge shift from the engine Codemasters have been maturing for years.
- The first thing mentioned in improvements from feedback was "tarmac handling". That wasn't a mistake; tarmac was DR2's downfall. So that explicit mention is good to see.
- Spain in particular, but a fair few of the scenery shots, don't look like a game in 2023 should look.
- That said, there was a pretty cool back-to-back of a real life corner played before the same corner in the game.
- And it does admittedly look meaningfully better than DR2, having now seen more of it. If this can match DR2's lighting and consistency, I'm thinking it'll be visually decent enough.
- Ooh some crappy real life video footage included in the game too. *Keanu woah*
- Season passes. Microtransactions. EA. Blegh.
Some comparisons to Dirt Rally 2.0
At launch, WRC will have:
- 17 rally countries + 1 post-release. DR2 had 13 rally countries after purchasing all DLC.
- 600 - 628km of unique track. DR2 had 314.73km of unique track after purchasing all DLC.
- 78 rally cars + 3 custom build rally classes. DR2 had 56 rally cars after purchasing all DLC (81 cars in total with all rallycross DLC cars too).
- Around 17km on average per unique track. Roughly a 41% increase over DR2's 12.07km average per unique track.
Other notes
- The seasonal changes won't include the snow stages. Probably Monte Carlo and Sweden.
- Livery editor is in. The Dirt Rally series didn't have that (but mods were a thing).
- Regularity Rallies! Interesting. So there will be special stage... er... stages at the very least. Since there are Regularity Rallies, I guess there must be special stages too. This also throws out my above estimates about stages a bit, so we'll see.
- Still no Celica, or any Toyotas outside the single WRC class Yaris, so my dreams of having the Sega Rally trio are still unsatisfied.
- No GT class from DR2 which is a shame. They were so hard to manage, but that was their fun.... Driving a Mustang through the rain at night amid the rocky turns of Argentina.
- No Rallycross, no Hill Climb, is assumed.
- VR unknown. Some sites are calling it confirmed based on Steam, but grain of salt imo. It was missing in DR2 initially, but the community got stinky about it and it was later added, so I'd say there's a good chance of VR.
- Dynamic weather unknown, a big perk from Kylotonn's WRC series. The video at the top of this post mentions that Codemasters have promised it, but I haven't found this officially mentioned anywhere.
I'm super curious about what the Career Mode will look like, because in DR1 & 2 it. was. awful.
I am going to miss the Scotland stages from DR2. Damn I loved them.
If the audio lives up to DR1 & 2, it should be great, both for engines and co-drivers.
And finally, will it have 1 single corner in the entire game where the co-driver calls out "Don't cut, be brave"?
Cars and Locations Lists (Spoiler tagged for length)
And something fun to end on:
Come on, you can't not get excited by that. If interested, you can watch the whole stage here.
