WRC9 Codemasters Secure Official WRC Licence

[Paul Jeffrey]

Big news for fans of the FIA World Rally Championship - Codemasters have today announced they have secured the rights to bring the official WRC games to console and PC.

Reportedly beginning from 2023 in a five year exclusive deal, the studio have captured the rights to represent the FIA World Rally Championship for current licence holds Kylotonn Games, with the new IP expected to slot in alongside the current and highly popular DiRT Rally franchise.

The news was broken earlier today by gamesindustry.biz, and further details aside from a potential 2024 release date have yet to be made public by Codemasters or the WRC.

With DiRT Rally 1 & 2 having firmly laid the foundations of a solid claim to Codemasters off road credentials, it looks like the future of the official World Rally Championship in digital form is in very good hands indeed....


Original Source: gameindustry.biz

Codemasters F1 and DiRT Rally series of games are available now.

Want to chat about the various official rally games currently available? No worries, head over to the WRC 9 sub forum and let us know your thoughts today!

 

[Tedium11]

now with fmod in rbr we have the best sound in all rally titles,we have vr,we have all the hardcore equipment working(not like wrc that is on the 8th year and still my hydraulic pedals or handbrake,or dd wheel dont work properly) i dont see any point of rallying in those simcade titles. all the cars from 10 clases and 100 different real rally stages, it is the king.now if you want photorealistic graphics then yes play dirt,or wrc franchise.the difference is that the power of the community is unlimited.sky is the limit

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

I can't really put my finger on it but it is not about the path the stages take, it is more about how they look, how narrow the track is and what assets like vegetation and stuff on the side of the road looks like. In WRC 8 you don't have to tell me that I am driving a german stage, it does look like Germany, in DIRT 2 I actually do recognize the the way it goes but road surface, wideness and things like roadsigns look wrong. On top of it DIRT stages have always looked assembled from finished parts to me. And while the graphics engine in DIRT is certainly superior it just looks less realistic - apart from cars, oviously

Not sure I fully agree, but disagreeing isn't really a big deal is it. Boring if everyone had agreed on everything

What I agree with though, and this is not just WRC8, but often in WRC games in general. Is that you often recognize the country quite easy. But then again, they have the advantage of not using real stages. So they can take the 3-5 main elements people remember from rallies. Take cobblestones and hincklesteins, add wineyards and dark forest sections. And you have all the main ingredients for Rally Germany. Take el chocolate, some watersplashes and the "Evens lost the win" bridge, and you got the main characteristics of Argentina and so on.

Often these things are spread out over multiple stages IRL, so if you are making stages true to real life, like has been done in the DiRT Rally games, it's hard, and next to impossible to get all those elements in.

However, if you are making fantasy stages, you can put all these elements in. It's easier to recognize and feel at home, but not sure it's any better.

Finland feels in general too wide in DiRT though. Compared to real life.

 

[Durge Driven]

To be honest I do not believe you can create a racing game that pleases both casual controller and more hardcore simmers alike.

I agree 100%
Way forward has been clear to me for 20years

Pro and Ama versions of each sim
AMA would be what we have now
PRO versions would lose all the aids and other help

Best of both worlds and over time some people will even buy both versions jumping from AMA to PRO = even more sales

No brainer imho how hard would it be to do

 

[IceColdBeard_24]

Codemasters has been making arcade game for the last 20 years....not expecting a WRC Realistic/Sim game...

 

[Jesus Clemente Hernandez]

This is what I think: Codemasters and its Dirt series is the second best game of rally out there after RBR. I think they did a great job in Dirt rally and specially in 2.0. Dirt 2.0 is the best game released by the british company so far. I think they will work hard to improve feedback and with all the rights of WRC, it will be a "paradise" for rally lovers. What a great time to be alive for simracers!!!

 

[azaralamouri]

The only mass riot I support is a riot against WRC for killing the competition among the only two "hardcore" rally simulator studios.

Thanks WRC for wasting our lives for a small sum of money.

 

[motoliser]

So turns out Richard Burns Rally will still be the king of simulators for the next decade!!!

 

[oorjit07]

If they play this well, they can release the WRC games with a rally and sim mode, satisfying the younger or more casual crowd, as well as the hardcore sim enthusiasts. DiRT Rally has been pretty well received amongst the hardcore crowd anyway, and the regular Dirt titles are hugely popular anyways.

 

[Cheesenium]

Not sure if I am comfortable with that, especially more and more licenses are monopolised by this company.

At the same time, one of the best engines, Madness engine is also owned by them.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Our only hope is Reiza making a real rally sim in 2025 or so.

Probably not rally, but AMS2 will have a DLC pack with offroad stuff in it.

 

[Twisteddrift]

I haven't played the WRC games ever since WRC 5. But I've always played the Codemasters games. I'm really looking forward to it when they produce the games. I reckon they'll be just as good as the f1 games which we all love.

 

[Jebus]

I won't get hyped until I hear that there will be multiple real stages per location and not just cuts from one big stage lasting few minutes.
Good official WRC sim would be awesome though.

 

[RichardHessels]

I think it's good that several companies can have licenses, even to have a quality competition, look what happens with F1, not that Codemasters games are not good, but it is aimed at a more casual audience, imagine if the license was acquired for more companies like Reiza, Kunos, Studio 397, Iracing etc. we could have excellent games, I think it is a mistake for a single company to have the license.

Being the only one who can use the license comes at a huge cost.
Not many studio's have pockets that deep.
For a F1 game aimed at all ages Codies is doing quite good.
Had some really goodtimes with it.

 

[UnixRoot]

And then there's me, who's still playing Richard Burns Rally.

 

[gamer19]

Official WRC cars and stages with Dirt Rally quality

Yeah, we all hope they'll go that way
and not. . . the other

 

[turbo86]

Wow... an all of a sudden everyone forgot DR 2.0 ever existed. The rally simulator that everyone had only good things to say about.....and KTs junk that never lived up to any standards...has somehow become KING of rally SIMULATION.
I shouldn't be surprised though...PC2 went from "bad simcade" to "better than AC and ACC" within a couple of days after Reiza announced PC2.5 Brazil Edition..oops sorry i mean "AMS2".
I don't understand this forum anymore. If the latest WRC game was any better than the previous ones i'd say this swift is justified, but that's not the case. It's the same "game", if not worse (loving those RPG elements don't ya?). What's the matter? Are you simply mad at Big Bad Codemasters?
I guess it's time to GTFO of here...

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

I think it's good that several companies can have licenses, even to have a quality competition, look what happens with F1, not that Codemasters games are not good, but it is aimed at a more casual audience, imagine if the license was acquired for more companies like Reiza, Kunos, Studio 397, Iracing etc. we could have excellent games, I think it is a mistake for a single company to have the license.

Licensees care more about profits(and exclusivity allows them to charge more) than delivering good games, it might be short sighted but that's what they are looking for.

 

[Epistolarius]

Wow... an all of a sudden everyone forgot DR 2.0 ever existed. The rally simulator that everyone had only good things to say about.....and KTs junk that never lived up to any standards...has somehow become KING of rally SIMULATION.
I shouldn't be surprised though...PC2 went from "bad simcade" to "better than AC and ACC" within a couple of days after Reiza announced PC2.5 Brazil Edition..oops sorry i mean "AMS2".
I don't understand this forum anymore. If the latest WRC game was any better than the previous ones i'd say this swift is justified, but that's not the case. It's the same "game", if not worse (loving those RPG elements don't ya?). What's the matter? Are you simply mad at Big Bad Codemasters?
I guess it's time to GTFO of here...

Ah yes, because nobody can enjoy or value something else than you do...

Looking at the effort Codies puts into the lifeless F1 franchise, I don't expect an official WRC license is going to help much with Dirt.

 

[tonydean2]

The original Dirt series were quite good from an entertainment prospective. When they announced they were bringing out Dirt Rally they were taking a bold decision. Rallying is an area of motorsport that had traditionally been sadly overlook by devs (with the exception of RBR) and Codemasters Colin McRae Rally series which imo was to arcade based. I bought DR and whilst having no experience of Rallying to fall back on it impressed the hell out of me and I was hooked in DR2 they made a major jump forward. Sure it's not perfect, suspect ffb and the tarmac dynamics need serious work. The Colin Mcrae DLC is brilliant if only for the inclusion of the Scotish stages and the Subaru Legacy. They've prove to all including themselves that they can create a pretty decent Rally Sim. So by obtaining the WRC franchise they have a perfect opportunity to show what they really can do. I wish them well and look forward to their first WRC hopefully with sorted ffb, improved tarmac dynamics and no loss of quality in graphics. Don't let us down Codemasters

 

[David Wright]

I'm surprised anyone cares about the WRC license. In 2027. Will there even be a WRC in 2027?

Sorry I forgot it was another opportunity to bash Codies. Stupid of me

Remind me again who are the "good" developers? Are there any left?