The tenth installment in the WRC series has been released and features improved driving physics and impressive retro content.
Note: WRC 10 was tested using the Steam version on PC with a wheel, pedal set and handbrake. A review copy of the title was not provided to us.
KT Racing has released WRC 10 across most major platforms. This year’s edition features historical content and major moments from WRC rally history to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the race series.
It only takes a few moments in game to spot the shortcomings of WRC 10, but roughly the same amount of time to appreciate the improved driving experience in this title. Like Codemasters’ F1 series, the WRC game franchise is plagued with workarounds and shortcomings that should have been fixed before the release of the each successive title, but unlike F1 the latest WRC entry shows substantial improvements to the driving experience. These improvements make WRC 10 a fun, challenging and engaging rally title.
Graphics
WRC 10’s graphics can wow at times and underwhelm at others. Gameplay graphics look great most times, but often seem more passable than impressive. The highlights of the visuals include the sunlight breaking through the trees, or the reflections of light off nearby puddles, or the way your headlights carve a limited beam through pitch black night stages. Standing water on the road further ahead, roadside buildings, and rubble on the track, however, look much much generic and poorly rendered. Overall, the graphics look good, and despite looking grainier than many contemporary racing titles and not running as efficiently as its rally sim rivals, the graphics should be more than adequate for most users.
There is still no VR support for WRC, either. For those who prefer their rally experience with an HMD, the DiRT Rally titles are still the go-to platform.
Sounds
Sounds in rally titles are tougher to rate than many other racing titles. If you were to hop into Assetto Corsa Competizione and take the Maserati GT4 for a spin, you’d be treated to an beautifully obnoxious engine note that fills the entire soundscape. Rally titles, however, need to be well-balanced and leave room to hear pace notes and the crunch of body work as it slams into hills and objects on the side of the course.
WRC 10 manages the balance of sounds very well. The engine notes aren’t as roaring and aggressive as you might expect based on KT Racing’s loading screen for the title, but they do a good job conveying the scream of the high revving engines. More importantly, the pace notes are well delivered from your co-driver, and the crunches and bangs of slamming a car through tight turns or ubiquitous trackside flora are nicely balanced on the default settings. Various co-drivers can be selected, and the calls of “ouch” when you clip a fence or “YES!” when you lead a sector add significantly to the enjoyment of driving here. Moreover, WRC 10 also has excellent tire squeal noises on the hard, paved surfaces which add to the thrill of nailing a handbrake turn.
Driving Experience
We first reported on WRC 10’s improvements to the driving physics in early July. Rally legend Sebastian Loeb praised the upcoming title, but many in the sim racing community questioned whether this was an observation or a paid endorsement. Thankfully, it appears to be the former. The changes to the driving experience aren’t a complete overhaul for the WRC series, but enough for fans of the series to notice.
Players are treated to a variety of car and track physics examples, from the fast and extremely responsive rips through Japan or Croatia’s road courses to the soft and flowing momentum management drives in Estonia. The precision of the former and the fun of the latter were a pleasant surprise. The paved surfaces demand fast reaction time and a keen ear for co-driver calls, while the gravel surfaces become a fun and loose romp which forces you to consider how your current momentum and angle will affect a corner several seconds down the road.
When conditions turn for the worse in WRC 10, the difficulty ramps up drastically. Choosing the right tires is crucial, and even with the correct rubber fitted to your car the reduced grip is a challenge. Snowy, slushy or wet conditions prevent the extreme precision and speed that’s possible on the dry roads in this title, and most commonly produces understeer rather than the oversteer seen on gravel surfaces. The wet surfaces are the most challenging. They are perhaps less enjoyable than dry surfaces here in WRC 10, but of course a necessary part of rally driving and reasonably well put forth by KT Racing.
The force feedback on the other hand leaves something to be desired. The various road surfaces produce significantly different FFB experiences, and setting a wheel to produce a reasonable amount of road surface rumble and suspension bumps on gravel surfaces can create a flat, numb experience on road surfaces. Thankfully the driving experience is redeemed for the reasons stated above, but those who seek to reproduce accurate road feel through their sim wheel may need to invest significant time in customizing their experience and may still be left wanting after doing so.
WRC 10 also has an extensive damage model. The car will incur a certain amount of damage just from driving, but you can also deal unnecessary damage to the vehicle by smashing into trackside objects. Tires will wear and even puncture, so rotating between different sets of tires in between stages is essential and absorbing a time penalty while repairing punctures mid-stage may be advantageous versus trying to finish a stage with greatly reduced performance. Suspension, engine, turbo, brakes, bumpers and more can be repaired between stages, and the degradation of each of these aspects of your car affects its performance.
User Interface
Codemasters has yet to add mouse support to their F1 series, which is inexplicable, but WRC’s limited mouse support is equally confusing. The career mode in WRC 10 involves an unusually large number of screens, and many of these will force PC users to reach for their keyboards to confirm or undo choices, or in some cases to navigate to various options on the current menu.
Interface methods notwithstanding, the menus and general user experience outside of gameplay is reasonably well done. Loading times are reasonable, and you’re never far from the options screen to customize gameplay, sound or graphics options to your liking. The shortcomings of the user interface seem primarily limited to what is not present in the title, rather than poor implementation of what is present. A lack of a frame rate cap and limited options for multiple input devices are two notable items that could create frustration from some users. While the user interface in WRC 10 isn’t the worst among racing titles, it seems to be the most noticeable oversight in the improvements from the 9th installment to the 10th in the WRC series.
Content
Having the rights to the World Rally Championship series is obviously a massive advantage of this game series versus its competitors. This year more than ever, that advantage shines through. Much of the time in game is still spent in the WRC Junior, WRC3 and 2, and WRC cars, but the expanded historical content is the icing on the cake and breaks any sense on monotony or limitations with the car selection. 20 news historic cars from Alpine, Audi, Lancia, Subaru, Ford, Mitsubishi adnd Toyota have been added to this year’s title.
On the tracks front, WRC 10 continues the series tradition of giving users fast and beautiful rally courses from around the world. The courses are continuously flanked by trees, hills, spectators and buildings that are well placed and deliver a sense of immersion and speed simultaneously. Surfaces vary not only by location, but also by distance travelled on track. Ascending a snowy hill may have the car traveling over wet roads initially, followed by increasingly snowy sections towards the end of climb. There are even a few challenges in game on closed dirt circuits instead of the standard point-to-point rally courses. Estonia, Croatia, Belgium and Spain have been added this year.
KT Racing’s rights to the WRC series will be handed over to Codemasters in 2023, but for the time being they have made the most of what’s on offer and delivered an impressive array of new and old cars and tracks.
Single Player
The single player experience in WRC 10 is matched by very few titles in racing. In addition to being able to simply jump in run time trials at your leisure, there are also free roam maps to explore, training missions for those looking to improve their rally driving skills, and a very in-depth career mode.
The career mode can be approached as a simple set of sequential races, as a complex and technical car and team management experience, or anything in between. At its most complex, the career mode allows you to oversee improvements to your car and a team of employees that help keep things running smoothly behind the scenes. There are, however, very few things you must do in the career mode other than race in the rallies, so the experience never needs to be daunting unless you choose to take on the management aspects. Pursuing those management aspects does increase your probability of success on the track, and WRC 10 provides a rewarding experience as a result.
The difficulty level of the single player experience in WRC 10 can vary wildly. You may dominate certain rally events or stages, only to be bested by the AI at the next event on the same difficulty settings. This seems concentrated on a few areas, as the AI seem to hold an advantage in adverse weather conditions, whereas the player seems to hold an advantage in dry conditions on any surface. The AI seems to be slower through hairpins as well, so players looking to make up time should work to improve their power-slides through hairpins. The historic and extreme weather challenges offered to players in the career mode are particularly tough, and may take several passes to complete under the allowed time limit.
There are dozens of hours of fun to be had in the career mode as the player grows the car and the team and progresses through the various tiers of rally car in WRC 10. And even more hours can be invested in trying to beat personal best times at the various courses. The single player mode is very well done.
Multiplayer
The advantage rally sims have over other racing titles in multiplayer is the absence of trolls. If you were to join an open lobby in most new racing titles, you’d at risk of a stranger running you off track for reasons unknown and having your race ruined. WRC 10, however, offers various multiplayer modes without having to share track time with someone out to ruin your experience.
The standard (and most humbling) online mode is the time trial system, which ranks your best time against others from around the world, and even cross-platform. This mode is complemented in WRC 10 by formats that allow you to race against or with friends. Clubs, co-driver and split-screen racing are all possible in WRC10. There is also a standard online multiplayer mode which allows players to join or create online rally lobbies.
Summary
Ultimately any racing title should primarily be judged based on the experience of driving. In this spirit, WRC 10 is a fast, fun and impressively deep rally title. The improvements to the driving physics are noticeable and well implemented to make driving an exciting and enjoyable experience. The bugs, shortcomings and workarounds still present from previous titles are annoying, but thankfully don’t spoil the fun of this title.
The massive career mode, impressive content selection and various multiplayer modes should be enough to keep rally fans engaged. While the debate of ranking Richard Burns Rally vs Dirt Rally vs WRC for king of the rally games isn’t likely to be settled based on WRC 10, it’s improvements over 9 should impress both those new to the series and existing WRC series fans.
Pros
Note: WRC 10 was tested using the Steam version on PC with a wheel, pedal set and handbrake. A review copy of the title was not provided to us.
KT Racing has released WRC 10 across most major platforms. This year’s edition features historical content and major moments from WRC rally history to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the race series.
It only takes a few moments in game to spot the shortcomings of WRC 10, but roughly the same amount of time to appreciate the improved driving experience in this title. Like Codemasters’ F1 series, the WRC game franchise is plagued with workarounds and shortcomings that should have been fixed before the release of the each successive title, but unlike F1 the latest WRC entry shows substantial improvements to the driving experience. These improvements make WRC 10 a fun, challenging and engaging rally title.
Graphics
WRC 10’s graphics can wow at times and underwhelm at others. Gameplay graphics look great most times, but often seem more passable than impressive. The highlights of the visuals include the sunlight breaking through the trees, or the reflections of light off nearby puddles, or the way your headlights carve a limited beam through pitch black night stages. Standing water on the road further ahead, roadside buildings, and rubble on the track, however, look much much generic and poorly rendered. Overall, the graphics look good, and despite looking grainier than many contemporary racing titles and not running as efficiently as its rally sim rivals, the graphics should be more than adequate for most users.
There is still no VR support for WRC, either. For those who prefer their rally experience with an HMD, the DiRT Rally titles are still the go-to platform.
Sounds
Sounds in rally titles are tougher to rate than many other racing titles. If you were to hop into Assetto Corsa Competizione and take the Maserati GT4 for a spin, you’d be treated to an beautifully obnoxious engine note that fills the entire soundscape. Rally titles, however, need to be well-balanced and leave room to hear pace notes and the crunch of body work as it slams into hills and objects on the side of the course.
WRC 10 manages the balance of sounds very well. The engine notes aren’t as roaring and aggressive as you might expect based on KT Racing’s loading screen for the title, but they do a good job conveying the scream of the high revving engines. More importantly, the pace notes are well delivered from your co-driver, and the crunches and bangs of slamming a car through tight turns or ubiquitous trackside flora are nicely balanced on the default settings. Various co-drivers can be selected, and the calls of “ouch” when you clip a fence or “YES!” when you lead a sector add significantly to the enjoyment of driving here. Moreover, WRC 10 also has excellent tire squeal noises on the hard, paved surfaces which add to the thrill of nailing a handbrake turn.
Driving Experience
We first reported on WRC 10’s improvements to the driving physics in early July. Rally legend Sebastian Loeb praised the upcoming title, but many in the sim racing community questioned whether this was an observation or a paid endorsement. Thankfully, it appears to be the former. The changes to the driving experience aren’t a complete overhaul for the WRC series, but enough for fans of the series to notice.
Players are treated to a variety of car and track physics examples, from the fast and extremely responsive rips through Japan or Croatia’s road courses to the soft and flowing momentum management drives in Estonia. The precision of the former and the fun of the latter were a pleasant surprise. The paved surfaces demand fast reaction time and a keen ear for co-driver calls, while the gravel surfaces become a fun and loose romp which forces you to consider how your current momentum and angle will affect a corner several seconds down the road.
When conditions turn for the worse in WRC 10, the difficulty ramps up drastically. Choosing the right tires is crucial, and even with the correct rubber fitted to your car the reduced grip is a challenge. Snowy, slushy or wet conditions prevent the extreme precision and speed that’s possible on the dry roads in this title, and most commonly produces understeer rather than the oversteer seen on gravel surfaces. The wet surfaces are the most challenging. They are perhaps less enjoyable than dry surfaces here in WRC 10, but of course a necessary part of rally driving and reasonably well put forth by KT Racing.
The force feedback on the other hand leaves something to be desired. The various road surfaces produce significantly different FFB experiences, and setting a wheel to produce a reasonable amount of road surface rumble and suspension bumps on gravel surfaces can create a flat, numb experience on road surfaces. Thankfully the driving experience is redeemed for the reasons stated above, but those who seek to reproduce accurate road feel through their sim wheel may need to invest significant time in customizing their experience and may still be left wanting after doing so.
WRC 10 also has an extensive damage model. The car will incur a certain amount of damage just from driving, but you can also deal unnecessary damage to the vehicle by smashing into trackside objects. Tires will wear and even puncture, so rotating between different sets of tires in between stages is essential and absorbing a time penalty while repairing punctures mid-stage may be advantageous versus trying to finish a stage with greatly reduced performance. Suspension, engine, turbo, brakes, bumpers and more can be repaired between stages, and the degradation of each of these aspects of your car affects its performance.
User Interface
Codemasters has yet to add mouse support to their F1 series, which is inexplicable, but WRC’s limited mouse support is equally confusing. The career mode in WRC 10 involves an unusually large number of screens, and many of these will force PC users to reach for their keyboards to confirm or undo choices, or in some cases to navigate to various options on the current menu.
Interface methods notwithstanding, the menus and general user experience outside of gameplay is reasonably well done. Loading times are reasonable, and you’re never far from the options screen to customize gameplay, sound or graphics options to your liking. The shortcomings of the user interface seem primarily limited to what is not present in the title, rather than poor implementation of what is present. A lack of a frame rate cap and limited options for multiple input devices are two notable items that could create frustration from some users. While the user interface in WRC 10 isn’t the worst among racing titles, it seems to be the most noticeable oversight in the improvements from the 9th installment to the 10th in the WRC series.
Content
Having the rights to the World Rally Championship series is obviously a massive advantage of this game series versus its competitors. This year more than ever, that advantage shines through. Much of the time in game is still spent in the WRC Junior, WRC3 and 2, and WRC cars, but the expanded historical content is the icing on the cake and breaks any sense on monotony or limitations with the car selection. 20 news historic cars from Alpine, Audi, Lancia, Subaru, Ford, Mitsubishi adnd Toyota have been added to this year’s title.
On the tracks front, WRC 10 continues the series tradition of giving users fast and beautiful rally courses from around the world. The courses are continuously flanked by trees, hills, spectators and buildings that are well placed and deliver a sense of immersion and speed simultaneously. Surfaces vary not only by location, but also by distance travelled on track. Ascending a snowy hill may have the car traveling over wet roads initially, followed by increasingly snowy sections towards the end of climb. There are even a few challenges in game on closed dirt circuits instead of the standard point-to-point rally courses. Estonia, Croatia, Belgium and Spain have been added this year.
KT Racing’s rights to the WRC series will be handed over to Codemasters in 2023, but for the time being they have made the most of what’s on offer and delivered an impressive array of new and old cars and tracks.
Single Player
The single player experience in WRC 10 is matched by very few titles in racing. In addition to being able to simply jump in run time trials at your leisure, there are also free roam maps to explore, training missions for those looking to improve their rally driving skills, and a very in-depth career mode.
The career mode can be approached as a simple set of sequential races, as a complex and technical car and team management experience, or anything in between. At its most complex, the career mode allows you to oversee improvements to your car and a team of employees that help keep things running smoothly behind the scenes. There are, however, very few things you must do in the career mode other than race in the rallies, so the experience never needs to be daunting unless you choose to take on the management aspects. Pursuing those management aspects does increase your probability of success on the track, and WRC 10 provides a rewarding experience as a result.
The difficulty level of the single player experience in WRC 10 can vary wildly. You may dominate certain rally events or stages, only to be bested by the AI at the next event on the same difficulty settings. This seems concentrated on a few areas, as the AI seem to hold an advantage in adverse weather conditions, whereas the player seems to hold an advantage in dry conditions on any surface. The AI seems to be slower through hairpins as well, so players looking to make up time should work to improve their power-slides through hairpins. The historic and extreme weather challenges offered to players in the career mode are particularly tough, and may take several passes to complete under the allowed time limit.
There are dozens of hours of fun to be had in the career mode as the player grows the car and the team and progresses through the various tiers of rally car in WRC 10. And even more hours can be invested in trying to beat personal best times at the various courses. The single player mode is very well done.
Multiplayer
The advantage rally sims have over other racing titles in multiplayer is the absence of trolls. If you were to join an open lobby in most new racing titles, you’d at risk of a stranger running you off track for reasons unknown and having your race ruined. WRC 10, however, offers various multiplayer modes without having to share track time with someone out to ruin your experience.
The standard (and most humbling) online mode is the time trial system, which ranks your best time against others from around the world, and even cross-platform. This mode is complemented in WRC 10 by formats that allow you to race against or with friends. Clubs, co-driver and split-screen racing are all possible in WRC10. There is also a standard online multiplayer mode which allows players to join or create online rally lobbies.
Summary
Ultimately any racing title should primarily be judged based on the experience of driving. In this spirit, WRC 10 is a fast, fun and impressively deep rally title. The improvements to the driving physics are noticeable and well implemented to make driving an exciting and enjoyable experience. The bugs, shortcomings and workarounds still present from previous titles are annoying, but thankfully don’t spoil the fun of this title.
The massive career mode, impressive content selection and various multiplayer modes should be enough to keep rally fans engaged. While the debate of ranking Richard Burns Rally vs Dirt Rally vs WRC for king of the rally games isn’t likely to be settled based on WRC 10, it’s improvements over 9 should impress both those new to the series and existing WRC series fans.
Pros
- Improved driving experience over previous series titles
- Great car and track selection, including multiple new locations
- Engaging career mode
- Impressive historical content and challenges
- Various multiplayer racing options
- Co-driver calls, tire squeals and chassis crunch sounds are nicely done
- Frustrating user interface
- Graphics can be great at times, not-so-great at others
- No VR
- FFB can feel numb
