EA Sports WRC Coming 3 November, Pre-orders Open Now

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Following last week’s announcement, the newest WRC game finally has a reveal trailer. Releasing on 3 November, this is EA Sports WRC.

Image credit: EA Sports

The time has finally come, rally fans. Indeed, months of speculation, rumours and slowly disappearing hope have come to an end for those looking forward to a new official WRC game. Taking on the baton from Kylotonn, Codemasters and EA now have five years of the WRC licence ahead of them.

The pairing known for the F1 series of games finally released the reveal trailer for the upcoming game. Releasing 3 November, EA Sports WRC is set to feature a number of changes from the Dirt Rally series of old. Here is everything the trailer reveals.

Unreal Engine​

The first thing fans will notice from the reveal trailer is the graphics: They are far flatter and more realistic than those of Dirt Rally 2.0. Whilst less pretty, this will surely not be a bad thing as immersion will certainly come with the improved engine.


Indeed, the game will run on the Unreal Engine, a popular option for games of all realms in recent years. Much like Assetto Corsa Competizione, EA Sports WRC will adapt its own physics into the graphics engine.

Speaking of physics, EA is firm in its statements that the new game will indeed be a sim racing title. This should put to rest the fears that the title would cater solely to a beginner audience whilst omitting the more hardcore racing fan. However, there will reportedly be simplified pace notes and several driver aids to help newcomers get settled in.

Content in EA WRC​

Built upon the physics engine of Dirt Rally 2.0, the game will clearly also feature many cars from the previous rally game. A selection of classic cars feature in the reveal trailer, including the Lancia Delta HF Integrale and Subara Impreza WRX STI. Reportedly, a total of 68 cars will feature in the game at launch.

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Subaru Impreza EA Sports WRC. Image credit: EA Sports

Elsewhere, thanks to the official WRC licence, the game will obviously feature the trio of hybrid Rally1 cars one can see roaring up stages in the real series. The junior categories WRC2 and 3 will also join the game with a number of models each.

Speaking of stages, 18 of the 19 rally locations in this year’s WRC season will feature in the game at launch. The Central European Rally will join at a later date via a post-launch update. These 18 locations will account for 600km of roads covering asphalt, snow and gravel.

EA Sports WRC Game Modes​

One interesting game mode will allow players to add to the current line up of manufacturers. Much like F1 23‘s My Team, players will be able to create their own car meeting Rally1 specifications. How one will go about putting together the styling in this so-called ‘Builder’ mode is as yet unclear, but it will offer something unique in rally game spheres.

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Builder mode lets you create your own rally car. Image credit: EA Sports

Elsewhere, the recent F1 23 addition of real world scenarios is trickling down to the upcoming rally game. In fact, Moments will put players in actual scenarios of the real world season. Furthermore, Moments using classic cars will also feature.

A whole host of online racing options will be available to rally fans. From the aforementioned daily Moments challenges with leader boards and a Clubs section in which groups can organise rallies of up to 32 players, there will surely be plenty to do.

Pre-orders Open Now​

EA Sports WRC is available to pre-order right now. Available on Steam, Epic Store, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, it does away with the previous generation of consoles. As a result, one can expect a leap in graphical and physical rendering from the likes of DiRT Rally 2.0.

By pre-ordering the game, players will gain access to five VIP Season Passes as well as the Team Apparel pack. The biggest perk must be the three-day early access, meaning fans will get to play from 31 October.

Currently available at a discounted rate of €44,99, the full game will come in at €49,99 at launch.

OverTake’s own Jonas “Champion Joe” Schulz was on hand to react to the reveal trailer. Check out what he thinks of the news here.


Are you excited for EA Sports WRC? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
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About author
Angus Martin
Angus Martin
Motorsport gets my blood pumping more than anything else. Be it physical or virtual, I'm down to bang doors.

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Comments

TheDoctorSteam
Andrew_WOT said:
Having does not necessarily means using.
Excited about the release. Bring it on, UE and everything. There was arcade rally game "Gravel" using UE4, worked all right.
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Exactly, I think it's a good move not to delay the game because VR is not ready. And it is also good to tell VR users that they will eventually have what they want.
On the other side, DR2.0 uses the EGO engine, developed/improved by codemasters for the last 16 years, thats a a lot of experience "wasted" switching to Unreal. I hope it's for the better.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_(game_engine)
 
M
Shannon Flynn said:
600km of roads spread over 18 locations = ~33km per location.
ASSUMING that each stage is chopped up and reversed stages of one long stage, that would clock in at about 16km per location.
Not QUITE what K-T was doing, but that's more than I was expecting from Codies. Hopeful.

I was also afraid that Codies would sell the base game with like 6 or so locations and the remaining locations would be sold as DLC. Thank god they put that concern to rest.
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I actually think that's pretty subpar, if there are 4 unique stages per rally that's on average 8.3 km per stage, quite short for a sim. But 18 locations is a lot, wondering what the extra locations are as the WRC calendar has 13 rounds.
 
Shannon Flynn
Mazdaspeed said:
I actually think that's pretty subpar, if there are 4 unique stages per rally that's on average 8.3 km per stage, quite short for a sim. But 18 locations is a lot, wondering what the extra locations are as the WRC calendar has 13 rounds.
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When I did my math I took into account the fact that there are reverse stages. So the 16km would be the average distance of the longest stage at each location. I'd prefer that number be 160km, but I think it's probably better than what DR2 offered. Just making that up :)
 
BeliacosGR
Right now all i see in this video is KT stages with WRC23 cars. Hope the game has proper physics and not the floating **** boxed of KT. EA i have high hopes on this. Better be good. Better be close to DR!
 
idaanx
Mazdaspeed said:
But 18 locations is a lot, wondering what the extra locations are as the WRC calendar has 13 rounds.
Click to expand...
Looks like Spain is part of the extra locations. I'm guessing other locations from previous games (like Argentina and Australia) will be part of this too. This way they can reuse some of the assets again, hopefully not the same stages as before for the 3rd time.

wrc23-game-features-08-16x9.jpg.adapt.1920w.jpg
 
T
Let's start from the basics. Correct wheels and tires and car models. Things that the previous WRC games didn't have after WRC7.
Graphics look great. Correct colors and good detail, again, unlike the previous WRC games.As for the physics, i have no idea except that the dirt action already looks good. I hope tarmac action is good as well. Finally we will get a decent WRC game. It's been so many years.
 
G
mcroshaw said:
I'd bet it's a fair bit more than that. And it's a valid complaint. Dirt Rally in VR is phenomenal.
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Agree. Dirt Rally 2 in VR is one of the best gaming experiences that can get, ever. So I'm really looking forward to WRC. I can wait for it.
TheDoctorSteam said:
According to the steam hardware survey, 1.92% of their users has a VR headset
Source: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
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So 100% of the steam users are sim racers? Of course not. VR is only really usable and bought and used by simmers; flight sims, race sims, pinball etc. because there are almost no good VR roomscale games and it's more suitable for sims.

In the last poll of racedepartment it was stated that around 30% of the sim racers here used VR. That was in 2021, in a regular online server in Automobilista 2 a majority uses VR from my experience. But over all sims the number of probably something around 10% to 40%. It's a niche within a niche yes but you're not accurate with your numbers when it comes to sim racers and VR at all.

Besides that almost all sim users are not shown in the VR Steam numbers because they use OpenXR(I use it already for 2,5 years for all titles that I actively play), this bypasses SteamVR.
 
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G
TheDoctorSteam said:
Exactly, I think it's a good move not to delay the game because VR is not ready. And it is also good to tell VR users that they will eventually have what they want.
On the other side, DR2.0 uses the EGO engine, developed/improved by codemasters for the last 16 years, thats a a lot of experience "wasted" switching to Unreal. I hope it's for the better.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_(game_engine)
Click to expand...
I would also have preferred if they stayed with EGO engine. It's a great engine and Unreal engine has to be proven to be terrible for racing by ACC: the ghosting of TAA, the shadow pop-in, the level of detail pop in, the impossibility to adjust mirrors etc. etc.

For those reasons and probably many more Kunos won't use it again they will return to their own engine again for Assetto Corsa 2.

Yes delay is not an issue, I can wait and hope the best of it. It's good to see that WRC needs DX12 and that the system requirements are low. I see that it has DLSS but I hope that it has DLAA build in, because external DLLs will probably not work because of denuvo.or whatever it's called.
 
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  • Deleted member 197115

gamma123152 said:
So 100% of the steam users are sim racers? Of course not.

In the last poll of racedepartment it was stated that around 30% of the sim racers here used VR. That was in 2021
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Things might have changed since then, it's obviously past its prime when everyone was jumping on the new shiny thing, reality of high performance demands and subpar image quality hit pretty hard.
And are AMS2 users actually sim racers? :whistling: (kidding, kidding)
 
G
Andrew_WOT said:
Things might have changed since then, it's obviously past its prime when everyone was jumping on the new shiny thing, reality of high performance demands and subpar image quality hit pretty hard.
And are AMS2 users actually sim racers? :whistling: (kidding, kidding)
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That's why I stated 10 to 40% because I don't know the actual userbase. I think that most users that started with VR stay with VR; I know that you think the opposite because you mainly play ACC and went back to widescreen because it's close to impossible to get ACC working well enough in VR(and maybe others reasons such as comfort or seeing surroundings etc.).

It's okay to disagree or to think differently about the numbers but it's surely not 1,8%< that was my main point here.
 
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M
Premium
The openxr point is a very good one . Very few vr users use steamvr as it performs worse than openxr by a significant margin . I’d guess at 10-20% depending on sim . For ones that work well in vr like ams2 it’s probably a bit higher .
 
D

  • Deleted member 217114

Unreal Engine? That gonna be taxing for VR, 34 & 49inch 2k, 4k setups.
The pre-order + Bonusses also throw me off.
Lets see how it wil be reviewed. DR1 was my favourite
 
jonelsorel
"This is" .. just another EA game for me to avoid.

- ex EA employee, diehard Battlefield fan
 
TheDoctorSteam
RinusDirtRally said:
Unreal Engine? That gonna be taxing for VR, 34 & 49inch 2k, 4k setups.
The pre-order + Bonusses also throw me off.
Lets see how it wil be reviewed. DR1 was my favourite
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Do not forget Denuvo DRM and all that EA bloatware:
* Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: EA online activation and EA app software installation and background use required. * Denuvo Anti-tamper
* Requires 3rd-Party Account: Denuvo Anti-tamper
* Requires agreement to a 3rd-party EULA
 
D

  • Deleted member 217114

TheDoctorSteam said:
Do not forget Denuvo DRM and all that EA bloatware:
* Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: EA online activation and EA app software installation and background use required. * Denuvo Anti-tamper
* Requires 3rd-Party Account: Denuvo Anti-tamper
* Requires agreement to a 3rd-party EULA
Click to expand...
Wait... We need all that EA stuff? Ughhhh. Will probably buy it cheap somewhere in 6 months and then join Monkey D Luffy's crew, hehehe. No EA stuff then...
 
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  • Deleted member 197115

mcroshaw said:
The openxr point is a very good one . Very few vr users use steamvr as it performs worse than openxr by a significant margin . I’d guess at 10-20% depending on sim . For ones that work well in vr like ams2 it’s probably a bit higher .
Click to expand...
VR users stats is based on HW survey, not what driver you use. If you have it plugged into PC it will show in stats, you don't even have to use it, like ever.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

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