The Dakar Desert Rally free roam mode is here

The long anticipated and missing at launch Dakar Desert Rally free roam mode has arrived, courtesy of the latest 1.6 update.

Despite being an interesting and compelling racing game, points were lost because the Dakar Desert Rally free roam mode was one of a number of missing promised features. Fortunately, that is no longer the case.

Introduced in update 1.6 on the 19th of January 2023, free roam mode lets you experience, to quote developer Saber Porto, “the full off-road experience across Saudi Arabia”.

Yes, you can now waltz your way across every one of the many, many square kilometres, which really do look the part. Chuck in that dynamic weather and a grand drive is assured.

To jazz things up, the Dakar Desert Rally 1.6 update also adds treasure hunting as part of the new free roam mode. Here you get to “find hidden treasures throughout the desert”, according to the patch notes. Exactly what they are remains to be seen.

Also changed for the 1.6 update (available on all platforms) is reposition, which has been added to the toughest Simulation mode. Also allegedly fixed are save game management issues while auto save waypoints have been removed.

Saber Porto and publisher Saber Interactive (of SnowRunner fame) have also fixed an issue that prevented some Saudi Arabia Extended Map events from appearing in Professional and Simulation modes on the Epic Games version and sorted out warehouse management issues.

As for steering wheels, the patch notes also suggest the Logitech wheel Xbox game crash issue is now gone, while Thrustmaster wheels now have force feedback (FFB) on PC. Key binding and title-based steering wheel crashes got a fix, too.

Speaking in the 1.6 update patch notes, the developer said: “We appreciate your patience while our team has been hard at work on patches and updates to Dakar Desert Rally.

“We know this has taken longer than expected, so we wanted to say thank you to all of your feedback and support since the launch.”

The thank you, besides verbal? “Today, we are granting all pilots 100,000 experience points and 10,000 Dakar points with our 1.6 release.” In other words, simulation just got a whole lot easier to access. Go here for more details of the 2023 roadmap.