With Codemasters no stranger to rally games, its first attempt being WRC FIA World Rally Championship on PlayStation in 1998, and that Dirt Rally 2.0 has not been replaced since 2019, hopes are high for EA Sports WRC.
It was actually February 2023 when I first played what was then sometimes referred to as WRC 23. A handful of journalists and influencers attended an event in Sweden to play the game and see the Swedish Rally in Umeå.
Though the presentation and graphics were not quite there, the handling and force-feedback felt good. Unfortunately tarmac was at this time off-limits.
As such, I was excited to show actual gameplay, which we were not allowed to record using a capture card. So I waited. Then waited and waited some more. Finally, in October, it was time to play EA Sports WRC as it is now known in unfinished preview form – and now that I have the full retail version I can tell you everything.
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No, nothing to do with Bob. Builder is a feature for building your own EA Sports WRC rally car for Junior WRC, WRC 2 and top-flight WRC. Your creation can be used in the career mode, time trial, Clubs and basically every new mode I shall talk about.
Though there is not oodles of customisation available, you can choose various design elements including the front and rear bumpers, exhaust, spoiler, rims and even some interior stuff such as the seats, steering wheel, rev counter, and gear and handbrake shifter knobs.
There are also mechanical parts such as different engines, whether a naturally aspirated 2.0-litre or a turbocharged 1.5 or 1.6-litre as well as different gearboxes, limited-slip differentials and if your creation is front, mid or rear-engined. Each with different handling characteristics.
Depending on team budget and the parts you have unlocked during the career, you may not be able to slap-on all the best stuff – at least, not initially. Especially as parts are specific to each class of car.
Building your own vehicle is an under-utilised aspect of racing games (anyone remember Apex on the original Xbox?) so it is nice to see Codemasters has combined it with the ability to have a privateer team of your creation.
The reality is that more parts customisation would go a long way in helping builder stay fresh.
Similar to the Anniversary Mode in WRC 10, but annoyingly not WRC Generations, Moments is where you can relive iconic moments from the last 50 years of rally. In doing so, you can challenge the world via global leaderboards in legendary four-wheelers.
Said challenges in the preview include a famous drive by the late Colin McRae at the Finnish rally in 1992, in which his Subary Legacy RS was disintegrating around him yet he battled on like a champion.
New scenarios will be added to Moments, initially daily and then less frequently. More than 50 will eventually be available in the standard game, plus an extra seven for those with an EA Play subscription.
It is fun to play these famous rally moments, but there is less presentation effort than in WRC 10. A few lines of text is hardly a massive departure from the other gameplay modes.
Meanwhile, for those new to EA Sports WRC or rally games in general, Rally School is a great place to start. Each of its challenges helps you learn basic yet highly useful techniques such as lift-off oversteer, handbrake turns and left-foot braking.
Each test can be done on snow, gravel or tarmac, allowing you to get a feel for every surface. A suitably informative description (narrated and written) helps get you up to speed – even if a rally veteran.
Now, speed is usually king in rally, except in Regularity Rally. Here, the aim is to get through stages as close to the allocated time as possible, with points added to your score for being too early or too late.
As such, maintaining a steady speed is key to finishing a rally with the fewest points. Unique pace notes accompany this less typical style of rally racing so you know when to push on or ease off.
Not to be confused with career mode, which I shall get to in a second, EA Sports WRC Championship is a single player experience at WRC Junior, WRC 2 or WRC levels. You can select a car or use one you have built.
Then you can select the championship length, event length, number of restarts and the strength of your AI competitors, ranging from 1 to 100. At 70, I was winning by tens of seconds in all but tarmac rallies. So it seems as if some tweaking needs to be done before public release.
If you want to be even more specific and play Regularity Rally, Quick Play Solo is for you. Here, you can let the game generate a championship, create a specific rally and conditions or load a pre-made template or previous progress.
The settings for generate championship are name, format, bonus points off or for power stage and stage wins, AI performance, hardcore damage off or on and competition type, which allows you to keep running order surface degradation or have a ‘level playing field’.
Meanwhile, you can add events and select the vehicle class, rally location, season, route, service area length, weather and time of day. All very comprehensive.
Utilising the same options as Quick Play Solo, Quick Play Multiplayer takes things online. Cross-platform support exists and can be turned off, while up to 32 players can be in a lobby. Four times more than in Dirt Rally 2.0.
Options include quick match for speedy matchmaking, session browser for finding specific races, create rally for making your own, create regularity rally, social for linking other EA accounts and load template for using previous creations.
Requiring an EA Racenet profile, Clubs is where you can create and join, well, clubs. Unfortunately it was not working during the October preview, but I can tell you Clubs have no limit on how many players can compete. Regularity Rally is not included though.
Not only that, EA and Codemasters will be hosting two official Clubs that will be updated regularly. One for WRC and another for historic vehicles such as the Lancia Delta Integrale. This allows players to recreate year-long championships or replicate things in Dirt Rally 2.0.
Technically all rallying is a time trial but for those who want to challenge the world and become the fastest, there is a specific mode cunningly called Time Trial. Just you and your skills against other players.
It is possible to pick the weather for some stages, but not the time of day.
Want to get creative? The EA Sports WRC Livery Editor and customisation options are for you. Here you can adjust the appearance of your driver, including the race suit design, driver pose, gloves and cap. Great for when you want to look like you sell ice cream judging by some of the colour choices.
While there are free items to use right away, the Rally Pass area has most locked behind career progress from gaining experience (XP) or if you have an EA Play membership. More items than not are available if you spend money.
Unfortunately, the livery editor does not extend to race suits and other driver items. You can, however, mess around with the exterior of your car. Preset paintjobs exist and you can adjust the colour and materials of the roof, bonnet, wheels, spoiler and mirrors.
You can also choose varying levels of window tinting and slap on some decals if you want something completely custom. There are many to choose from and the system is layer-based, as is common these days, though other games do it better.
Whatever you make, you can save the livery for quick access in whatever game mode you want. There is no ability to share liveries online though, as you can in the Forza games.
Continuing the theme of creativity, EA Sports WRC has Photo Mode. Yes, you can pretend to be stage-side and snap photos of each rally car in action.
During a end-of-rally replay is where you can access Photo Mode. Yes, you cannot do it from the pause menu, which is an odd choice for those who may not always finish a rally but want to take photos.
Camera settings include exposure, shutter speed, brightness, contrast and other photography things I can explain in the comments if you are as big a nerd as I am. You can then use your PC or console’s screenshot function to capture and share from there.
One issue I noticed is that during replays if you use slow-motion the dust trail acts as if you were driving more slowly. Not only that, you can rewind time and then drive into it.
Finally, we come to the career mode. In the preview some stuff was broken. Therefore I will not dwell on the fact points are not always correct added up after a championship and that some benefactor challenges never complete as both are fixed.
What I will say is that the career works on a weekly basis. You can enter races based on car class, which is limited by your budget and vehicle slot number. Top-flight WRC cars are 750,000 to buy, while a tiny original rally Mini is 80,000.
Ultimately, scoring points in the overall championship and other series is the aim of the game. But you can also bolster your garage size, team size, hire new staff to help reduce repair and parts costs, train the chief engineer while keeping in budget or just ‘rest’ because staff stamina is a thing.
There are also events to unlock new parts for each class of vehicle. Not so useful to unlock parts for a level of car you plan to leave behind quickly or never return to, but there you go.
Because you can have multiple rally cars of different classes, it is not a bad idea to start in Junior WRC. Besides the fact they are pleasantly fast and enjoyable to drive, during my first season I was also able to budget for an old Lancia Group B monster.
This system helps reduce driving fatigue and repetition, especially as there are also events where a car is loaned to you. Though these can prove tough if you are a rally newbie.
Unlike in the later WRC games from Kylotonn, there is no cool garage visual. Instead, there is a bloke who repeats himself endlessly about budgets and a view of some computer screens. Fortunately, the overall presentation is good and the event variety keeps you busy.
In between races, you can repair your vehicle and opt to carry one or two tyres or remove to save 20kg of weight apiece.
You can mess around with tuning options, too, such as ride height and suspension rebound. Things that prove useful on stages with big jumps.
In terms of rallies, expect 17 global locations (12 stages apiece) across 600 kilometres (372 miles). Central Europe will be offered as a free DLC later in the year. Exactly when is unannounced, but an EA representative told me “not long after launch”.
The full list of countries: Monte Carlo, Sweden, Mexico, Croatia, Portugal, Sardegna, Kenya, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Chile, Japan, Mediteranneo, Pacifico, Oceania, Scandia, Iberia and Central European.
Use of the Unreal Engine has allowed for meatier stage design. The longest route, Pulperia in Chile, is 34.8 kilometres or 21.6 miles long. Nearly twice as long as previous Codemasters games and there are other 30km-plus rallies. In WRC Generations, the longest is 25.9km.
Some locations feature replicas of real stages, such as Col de Turini in Monte Carlo and El Chocolate in Mexico. The rest are a realistic interpretation – and most are satisfying to drive. As good as in WRC Generations.
Each country looks realistic and feels distinctive, with unique driving and car setup challenges. Kenya, for instance, makes driving straight difficult because of the dusty terrain and divots.
You can also expect 10 current rally steeds from WRC, WRC 2 and Junior WRC. Plus a meaty 68 historic vehicles from the last 50 years. Plenty to get you going and hopefully more will be added for all players – not just those who open their wallets.
Highlights (for me at least) include Subaru Imprezas, the Lancia Delta S4, BMW M1 Procar, Alpine A110 1600 S and Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500.
Unfortunately, EA Sports WRC does not have rallycross. Nor is there a co-driver mode as seen in the later Kylotonn games. A shame, really, as that was one of the most original additions to a racing game in years.
Now, Codemasters has been quiet on the subject of EA Sports WRC virtual reality. I can, however, confirm it is coming to PC via OpenVR. Not, sadly, PlayStation and its relatively fresh PSVR2 headset.
When can we expect EA Sports WRC VR? Well, both companies are avoiding specifics at this time. But I can at least tell you it will take longer to arrive than the aforementioned Central European rally pack.
While I am talking about visuals, there is no 120FPS/120Hz mode for PS5 or Xbox Series X. I also only played the preview on PC hence no performance comparisons.
Sweden, meanwhile, requires you to drive with high precision or risk slapping the tail into walls of ice and snow. Snow and gravel are where EA Sports WRC feels best though tarmac is less floaty. Perhaps a bit too grippy, in fact.
Almost last but definitely not least, a word on the handling ahead of my first impressions video. I would say EA Sports WRC now feels more like WRC Generations than Dirt Rally 2.0 – and that is mostly a good thing.
Whether on controller or steering wheel, the game flows beautifully most of the time. Partly because of the stage design, but also due to its mostly realistic handling model. Tarmac is more connected while other surfaces feel much more real and textured than in WRC Generations. Cars rotate more realistically too.
With that said, big-old rear-mounted engine layouts can handle like a pig. Far worse, seemingly, than in real life. Unsaveable oversteer, present in some Dirt Rally 2.0 stock setups, is hardly enjoyable. Tarmac’s high grip only accentuates the issue, particularly when using a controller.
Completing a full season in WRC Junior has, however, been a pleasure, with the cars feeling far speedier than I expected. Whether front or mid-engined.
Attempting rear-wheel drive in WRC 2 machinery was more of a test of patience, but on gravel and snow you can at least man-handle the car into doing what you want. On tarmac, keeping pace was much harder and considerably less intuitive.
There are also some deadly roadside pebbles that cause you to flip though thankfully this is mostly a problem in Monte Carlo and the developers are aware of it.
Luckily for those who were disappointed by Dirt Rally 2.0 at launch, myself included, there has been a noticeable improvement in EA Sports WRC when it comes to steering wheel force-feedback (FFB).
Using a Fanatec CSL DD (5Nm), I noticed all surfaces provide a considerable amount of surface information, including from undulations, loss of grip and landing jumps.
You feel nicely connected to the surface below, allowing fast reflexes to save oversteer in satisfying fashion. The default settings (everything at 100 per cent) are perhaps too weighty and benefit from fine-tuning but avoid being overbearing.
I managed to complete the longest rally (34.8km) in 27 minutes while man-handling my Fanatec and it felt good. Though I was a sweaty mess.
Scroll down for the full list of PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S supported steering wheel and accessories.
Finally, we come to the EA Sports WRC release date – the 3rd of November 2023. Just one version will be available, the ‘standard edition’, but there are bonuses for those who pre-order the digital game. Not the physical one.
Those who pre-order digitally can play three days earlier, plus enjoy five of the VIP Rally Season Pass and three team livery and apparel packs – one for Ford, Toyota and Hyundai.
Unfortunately, EA Sports WRC is a next-generation and PC title only. So no Nintendo Switch, PS4 or Xbox One. Expect this trend to only get more common as two of these consoles are about to go into retirement.
And that is it from little old me. Feel free to ask me questions about EA Sports WRC in the comments or let me know what you think. Subscribe and like for more driving game videos.
The EA Rally Pass is a paid sevice that does not include ‘pay to win’ cars or locations. Instead, you get customisation items for your car and driver as you earn XP and level up through all 20 levels per season, of which five are currently scheduled.
According to EA, each season features a racing suit, pair of gloves, helmet design for their custom driver and a selection of decals for use in the livery editor, as well as a livery to show off on the Ford Puma Rally1, Hyundai i20 N Rally1 and the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 hybrids.
EA Play, meanwhile, is another paid service that adds seven Moments in addition to the standard 50+ as well as a set of racing suits, gloves, helmets, caps and Rally1 liveries. All content will be available to those who join EA Play whether now or later.
NOTE for Thrustmaster Wheels: To ensure correct bindings to suit your current Wheel Rim, navigate to the Controls menu, highlight your Wheel Base from the list of detected devices, Edit Device and Load Device Preset. From here you can select your currently connected Rim and the tooltips will update accordingly.
NOTE: If the device is on this list, it will have bindings already in place when you connect it to the game. Other devices that aren’t on the list may work with the game, you will have to bind the actions yourself in the menu.
NOTE for Thrustmaster Wheels: To ensure correct bindings to suit your current Wheel Rim, please navigate to the Controls menu, highlight your Wheel Base from the list of detected devices, Edit Device and Load Device Preset. From here you can select your currently connected Rim and the tooltips will update accordingly.
NOTE: If the device is on this list, it will have bindings already in place when you connect it to the game. Other devices that aren’t on the list may work with the game, you will have to bind the actions yourself in the menu.
NOTE for Thrustmaster Wheels: to ensure correct bindings to suit your current Wheel Rim, please navigate to the Controls menu, highlight your Wheel Base from the list of detected devices, Edit Device and Load Device Preset. From here you can select your currently connected Rim and the tooltips will update accordingly.
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