EA Sports WRC is shaping up to be my favorite rally game in recent years

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Rally fans, this is your next stop. Play it if you’re looking for that white-knuckle rally racing fix, because this is the best-feeling WRC game I’ve played in a while. The racing experts at Codemasters have clearly settled into their new home at EA, because EA Sports WRC is feeling like the rally game to beat for the near future. In the past, Codemasters produced the DIRT series as a more arcade-friendly experience, while the DIRT Rally games were far more technically demanding rally sims. EA Sports WRC is closer to DIRT Rally than to DIRT, but it’s sleek enough to make for a good entry point for new fans, and demanding enough for old-school Colin McRae gearheads.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve played four hours of a preview build of EA Sports WRC. I’ve spent most of that time in career mode, completing two manufacturer hospitality events and the first two events of the snowy Rally Sweden series in the Junior WRC. I also spent some time in “Rally School” mode, dusting off my extreme driving skills in several of the included tutorials. In career mode, I spent a little time looking through the upcoming calendar, hiring staff, and reviewing sponsor goals for the upcoming WRC season.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT EA SPORTS WRC?

• The cars feel weighty. Something I’ve missed in KT Racing’s WRC games lately has been a feeling of gravity to any of the cars. As such, it was nice to drop back into a Codemasters game where the rally-tuned beasts really feel like machines bumping and sliding their way across the most demented roads known to humankind. Taking a right angle turn in the snow in Sweden, the audio melded with the rumble in my controller to let me feel the slush spraying under my tires. The asphalt in the Spanish mountainside felt nice and grippy after an hour spent in Rally Pacifico, driving a Lancia on dirt trails that twisted through the jungle. Codemasters has spent years honing its craft when it comes to vehicle feedback, and it showed.

• Slick career layer. I liked that the career mode in EA Sports WRC isn’t trying to be a full on management sim. I had a certain number of weeks to fill each season, and I could select from several possible ways to spend each one: scouting for new staff, expanding facilities, taking part in a race, or resting my team. This simplicity means the mode is a bit limited, but I actually prefer it taking up less time so I can get back to the driving.

• The tracks look and feel great. Being an officially licensed WRC game, there aren’t any huge surprises when it comes to course selection, but the tracks I’ve driven so far have all felt and looked terrific. After driving some old-school icons for the Lancia and Peugeot manufacturer events, hitting the snow in Sweden was nerve-racking—especially during the daytime leg in which I was one of the first in the running order. The sun reflected off the fresh snow ahead, making it almost impossible to see the turns coming up. Instead, I had to rely almost completely on my codriver reading off his pacenotes to avoid pitching off the edge of the road and into the forest. In other words, pure rally adrenaline.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN EA SPORTS WRC?

• Weird bugs need to be addressed. At the end of each race, I had to pull up to the marshal after crossing the finish line in order to complete my segment. The marshal is standing with their team at the end of a small segment of track immediately after the finish, but if I stopped before getting there and started backing up, I would get warped to the spot at the end instead. It doesn’t have a real gameplay impact, but bugs like this are weird and jarring.

• Opponents need to bring up their times. EA gave me a heads-up about this when they sent me the preview build, but opponents were embarrassingly slow during my time with WRC. Even when I made what I thought were restart-worthy errors, I’d still routinely end up winning events with margins of thirty seconds or more. This will reportedly be improved before the full launch in November—but, hey, maybe I just wanted to flex a little before they do.

💬 Are you a rally fan? Will you be checking out EA Sports WRC, or do you have another favorite game in the genre? Tell me about it in the comments!