Codemasters and Rally are a combination that has its roots in the dawn of the history of three-dimensional games, no player as old as the writer can forget the now legendary Colin McRae Rally and already on that occasion the English team had demonstrated its skills in creating games dedicated to this sport capable of conquering audiences and critics, but also their enormous passion for this fascinating discipline. A passion that continued over the years, albeit without the important WRC license, with the DiRT series and the two, hyper-specialist DiRT Rallies which had demonstrated for the umpteenth time the enormous capabilities of the British team.
The possibility of regaining the official World Rally Championship license obviously gives further importance to this project which, right from this very first preview, demonstrates that it has all it takes to satisfy enthusiasts. Of course, being able to boast the official license, EA SPORTS WRC offers us all the cars, teams and races of the current World Rally Championship, but not only that. The fans of this dangerous automotive discipline are certainly among the most passionate in all of motorsport in general, literally in love with the present, but also tied to the glorious past of this sport. This leads us to have the possibility of using some of the cars that have made history such as the Lancia Delta and Stratos, the Ford Escort Cosworth and the Ford Focus, passing through the terrifying cars of the famous Group B of the 80s, up to the current hyper-technological hybrid cars. There will be almost 80 cars available in the game at launch, a number that will probably grow thanks to any DLC, but Codemasters doesn’t stop there and here is one of the biggest innovations present in EA SPORTS WRC: il Car Builder.
MX Video – EA SPORTS WRC
As can easily be understood from the name, the Car Builder will allow us to create our car from scratch, a feature that no car game has ever offered us. We will therefore be able to compose our car by first selecting the type of chassis that we will use with different engine positions which will influence the character of our prototype and the relative weight distribution. We will then be able to select the mechanical parts such as the engine, brakes and suspensions, then moving on to the actual bodywork. We will then be able to customize both the exterior and interior of the car, being able to count on a good number of modifications relating for example to the spoilers, or to the dashboard, finally arriving at the creation of our personalized livery. A truly remarkable set of possibilities which, at least on paper, will allow a freedom never seen before. Naturally it will not be possible to create supersonic fighters that would upset the necessary game balance; at the beginning of the process of creating our car we will in fact be asked to select one of the three classes currently available in the World Rally Championship, therefore having to respect the relevant limitations imposed by the regulations. Once our creation has been completed, we will be able to test it to verify its effectiveness and, if satisfied, we will be able to finalize it and throw ourselves into the winding roads of one of the seventeen available locations which will become eighteen thanks to the addition of the Central European Rally, already planned post-launch .
As with every Rally game, expecting to have all the stages faithfully recreated meter by meter, as perhaps happens in driving games on traditional tracks, is impossible, but the work done by Codemasters seemed truly high level to me. To recreate each of the more than 600 km of tracks that make up the game, all the latest technologies have been exploited, starting from satellite data to have clear references in terms of altitude and conformation of the environment, arriving at photographic and video material to create the as meticulously as possible all the scenarios that form the backdrop to the World Rally Championship. In addition to all this painstaking care in the creation of the smallest details, for the first time ever we will also have the opportunity to compete in all those stages not characterized by snow in different seasons and therefore also with different weather conditions. An aspect that unfortunately has not been shown to us, but which will contribute to giving an even greater sense of realism and variety and which, hopefully, will also influence the handling itself.
Also surprising is the fact that for the first time Codemasters has chosen to abandon its own graphics engine, the Ego Engine which it had done so well over the years, switching to Unreal Engine, a choice that took me by surprise given that at EA we often opt to use the albeit excellent Frostbite. From the little I have been able to see, the choice made does not make us regret any of the other engines available to the Team, on the contrary, everything I have seen promises very well indeed. The work carried out certainly has an impact, both in terms of the cars, made really well down to the smallest detail, and for the views of the locations that will take us to visit the most remote corners of our planet. Also worth highlighting is the audio sector of the game, especially with regards to the sound of the cars, created again with painstaking care and which I am sure will differ greatly between classes of cars that are profoundly different from each other and will satisfy the expectations of the fans. more passionate.
The underlying modality of EA SPORTS WRC it will be the Career that will take place over several seasons and will allow us to start from the lower classes to aim to grow becoming the new Rally Star, however nothing will prevent us from starting directly from the Rally 1 class. We will therefore also be able to manage the managerial aspects of the creation of the our team, taking care of our engineers, up to the relationship with who will be our Sponsor. In addition to the Career, the game will also offer us other types of races, starting from the most classic Time Trial, passing through the typical Quick Race, a single Championship, arriving at the inevitable online races against other players. The impossibility of running in races with multiple participants at the same time on the road should be underlined. With this EA SPORTS WRC It’s clear that Codemasters wants to offer us an experience as similar as possible to the real one, perhaps sacrificing competitions that are more focused on the playful aspect, but less similar to the decidedly serious and realistic spirit that shines through the game.
Among the new features, the presence of Moments should also be highlighted, i.e. the possibility of retracing and reliving the moments that made the history of the Rally. They will be races in which we will have to obtain a certain result, retracing what happened in reality, while also having to perform certain maneuvers, always with the aim of recreating on the screen everything that happened in the real world and which contributes to making that specific moment part of the history of the Rally. These challenges will be updated periodically, they will offer us rewards and we will also be able to compare ourselves with other players thanks to the Online Rankings.
After this overview of the various aspects that the game will offer us when it arrives on the shelves on November 3rd, I was finally able to watch a short segment played by Jon Armstrong who, in addition to being a Codemasters Game Designer, is also a real Rally driver. The portion of the gameplay that I was able to view was limited to a single stage set in the dusty dirt roads that form the backdrop to the Sardinia Rally and the good Jon could count on a very respectable driving position, taking advantage of the wonders of a Direct Drive steering wheel , the best in terms of driving simulators. Naturally, the boy knows what he’s doing and seeing him drive through the narrow streets of our wonderful island, avoiding rocks and bushes, one countersteer after another, is a real spectacle in itself. Entertainment underlined by the excellent realization of everything that moves on the screen. The game never mentioned the slightest framerate problem, always remaining fluid despite the large amount of details on the screen. The dust raised throughout the journey, the details of the landscape and the construction of the car, both from the third-person view and from inside the cockpit, showed no particular signs of weakening or drops in style, everything It seems to me to have been made with the typical care of Codemasters games and I didn’t notice any anomaly between the movements of the steering wheel and what corresponded to it on the screen, everything seemed very realistic and plausible to me. Jon has also repeatedly underlined the good performance of the driving model even when using the controller, a crucial aspect which will need to be thoroughly verified when we have the chance.
Of course, it is impossible to express a real opinion on the driving feeling at the moment, but I cannot deny that expectations are high and that everything I have seen makes me very confident about the final performance of the game. Among the various information of a purely economic nature we were told that EA SPORTS WRC it will be available only in the standard edition and at the official price of 49.99. In these few weeks that separate us from the release, we will certainly have more and more details of what promises to be Codemasters’ grand return to the world of Rally, waiting for our review.