Dakar Desert Rally USA Tour is the end of the road

As the Dakar Desert Rally USA Tour update is released, the developer has said there will be no more new content to come.

Dakar Desert Rally has been better than any other game for capturing the essence of the gruelling, navigation-based racer. There has, however, been criticism over how long it has taken Saber Interactive sister studio, Saber Porto, to release all promised content.

Released on the 4^th of October 2022, it is only now that those who bought the Year 1 Pass can finally enjoy the whole shebang. This includes free roam, the roadbook editor for custom routes and lastly the Dakar Desert Rally USA Tour.

As part of patch 2.1, you get 256 square kilometres in the US of A. Specifically, the Grand Canyon and Nevada Desert stretching east to Farmington and Durango.

This includes the US Tour Qualifications (three stages), Yellowstone Rally (four stages), Nevada Desert Rally (four stages), Grand Canyon Rally (four stages) and the USA Tour with five stages, all for ‘sport’ mode.

At ‘professional’ level, you get all the aforementioned events except the qualifier, only with three stages apiece. Or you can be really mature and launch yourself off the Grand Canyon repeatedly. Pro tip: Save driving time by using the roadbook editor and ‘test drive’.

Then there is treasure to be found. Grand Canyon I, Grand Canyon II, Nevada Desert I, Yellowstone II and USA Tour are each home to 20 hidden treasures. Yellowstone I, meanwhile, has 25 and Nevada Desert II has 15.

Saber has been busy fixing various bugs and issues, too. This includes a glitchy roadbook image when using the cockpit camera, AI driving issues including when tackling tighter turns and the inability to validate long distances between checkpoints in the roadbook editor.

Not only that, various soft-lock and crash issues have been addressed. Though it seems as if some players, including me, are still experiencing fatal errors when playing, resulting in a crash back to the desktop.

Is this it for Dakar Desert Rally? It definitely seems that way based on what Saber Porto said at the end of its update patch notes post on Steam.

The Portuguese developer explained: “Thank you for reading these release notes! We want to thank you and all of our players who have been very patient with us, including those of you who took the effort to report issues, provide feedback, and showed us a big passion for Dakar since release!

“This is the end of a memorable journey for the team. We dedicated much of our time into delivering this content and fixes for the issues in Dakar Desert Rally with the hope of ending with a stable product that everyone can enjoy.

“Following this update, the ‘Known Issues’ article on the Saber Support and game’s websites will be removed. Stay tuned for our Dakar Desert Rally live stream this Thursday, in which we will be exploring the new USA Tour map. See you soon at the dunes,” it concluded.

Given that Dakar Desert Rally will not see any new content nor is it clear if there will be a sequel, it is probably about time I finished my video review. Ooops. To be honest, despite its shortcomings and delayed content schedule it was actually rather enjoyable.

Yes, the AI is hit and miss and the physics – though improved along the way – is still not the best for smaller vehicles. There is, however, unique gameplay thrills to be had. Getting lost in a rainstorm hundreds of miles from anyone with only a compass, there really is nothing like it.

Dakar Desert Rally is also a game that only holds your hand in sport mode. Beyond that, particularly in ‘Simulation’, it takes dedication to master stages that span tens or sometimes even hundreds of kilometres.

Worth a look, I would say, if you can get it at a sale price. Especially as not every game dumps the Grand Canyon on you before driving off into the sunset. Then again, da-car was always the star. Taxi for one, please…

Here I shall end this video. Thank you for watching. Be sure to like and subscribe. Maybe even let me know in the comments what you think about Dakar Desert Rally.