DiRT Rally 2.0 DiRT 2.0: Plenty of Improvements Detailed in New Roadbook Video

[Paul Jeffrey]

Codemasters have shed plenty of light on what is set to be new and improved in DiRT 2.0 - giving yet more insight into what looks likely to be a very impressive new rally title.

DiRT 2.0 is set to become the successor to the very popular DiRT Rally title of 2015 from Codemasters, and as such the studio appear to have been at pains to ensure the things that the original title did well have been brought over to the new release, but with even more refinements and improvements to what was very much an impressive launch all the way back in December 2015.

With Codemasters using the new game to reinvigorate the push for a more realistic rally experience, moving away from the arcade focussed DiRT 4, players can hopefully expect a much more refined and detailed depiction of loose surface performance driving in 2.0, something that should resonate with fans of both the real world sport and the classic Colin McRae Rally series - a franchise of games that Codemasters have gone to great lengths to pay homage to with the new title.

Neatly wrapping up the synergy between the original series and this upcoming release, Codies have even gone so far as to announce a tribute steelbook edition of DiRT 2.0, firmly wedging the design of the packaging firmly in line with the 2000 CMR2.0 game - a definite classic for rally fans of the era...

"For us, using the same design principles as we did for Colin McRae Rally 2.0 felt like a natural fit,’ said Codemasters’ Product Manager, Matthew Beckett. ‘After all, the “2.0” of DiRT Rally 2.0 was on homage to the title of Colin McRae Rally 2.0 – and although the games have changed a lot since then, our raison d’être has remained the same: to represent rally racing as truthfully as possible. Using this design is a nostalgic tribute to one of our most-loved rally games, but also a promise to our community to deliver the same, white-knuckle experience that Colin McRae Rally 2.0 did all those years ago.’

Chief Games Designer Ross Gowing said of the Steelbook: ‘it’s a great nod to where the studio has come from, and reminds us all of the amazing quality benchmark that Codemasters have always set.’
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Not long to go now folks, just get Christmas and the New Year out of the way and we shall be all set to have some off road racing fun!

DiRT Rally 2.0 will release February 26th 2019.

If you want to discussion the game with our passionate community, and read about the latest news, check out the RaceDepartment DiRT Rally 2.0 Sub Forum for a great place to pick up mods, catch the latest news and chat about the game with our community. Give it a go, just keep it DiRTy!

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[Helldriver]

I could careless if it makes me slower... I want to be in the car.... It's like those that use chase mode instead of cockpit... They are faster, but they are loosing out on the whole point of sims. Which is to be in the car in as realistic way as possible.

The oculus really improved my stage times in Richard Burns Rally and DIRT Rallye. You just got a better feeling for the dimensions of the car and a the track. It was really frightening, driving Dirt for the first time in VR, because of it´s immersion. Friends driving with my rig usually crash a lot, especially in rallye games.
With the Headset on, they are scared and driving much more carefully.

 

[rosgillies]

No VR no buy!! Plenty of VR friendly sims out there. Could`nt care less on missing out on it.

 

[Gaudin]

VR would be great, but I think most of us would be way slower in VR on Rallye stages

Have to disagree, I played several 100 hours in pancake mode - the game and the stages finally came alive with VR, and my times dropped massively, and I begann to understand the stages - I still hope they implement VR in DR 2 - it was so awesome in DR 1.

 

[bogani]

So it seems the Spanish stage that is represented in the game is La Figuera. Not the whole stage I assume, but the first half or the last half.

 

[MarcG]

VR support would be nice indeed, I tried Dirt Rally in VR and it was one of the best VR experiences, since especially in rallying the low resolution isn't really an issue.

But I can now see why developers are so reluctant to add support:

That's from latest Steam hardware survey. Only 0.78% of Steam users in total.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

If developers of Racing Sims solely look at Steam Stats then that's where they're going wrong, they need to look at VR users in Racing Sims (throw in Space & Flight as well) where the percentage is much much higher. Lets not forget the recent Steam Stats whereby it said an incredibly small amount of users have Wheels, should Sims therefore drop support for those? Of course not, Stats from the Genre of Game/Sim are more comparable to those of the general overall Stats.

 

[Neils on Wheels]

VR support would be nice indeed, I tried Dirt Rally in VR and it was one of the best VR experiences, since especially in rallying the low resolution isn't really an issue.

But I can now see why developers are so reluctant to add support:

That's from latest Steam hardware survey. Only 0.78% of Steam users in total.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

Thats a percentage of steam users not potential customers. VR ownership is far greater for people into sims. You would probably see similar results if you looked at steering wheel ownership but you don't see them dropping support for that.

Anyway i said i wouldn't getting involved in any VR begging with codemasters but i just wanted to make that point.

 

[Cote Dazur]

"We have done stuff. good stuff, stuff you will like"

Sounds very presidential,

Looks like your going to miss out, then...

Not missing anything if it is not in VR.

VR support would be nice indeed, I tried Dirt Rally in VR and it was one of the best VR experiences, since especially in rallying the low resolution isn't really an issue.

But I can now see why developers are so reluctant to add support:

That's from latest Steam hardware survey. Only 0.78% of Steam users in total.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

This not representing the SIM community, just the Steam community.

I buy it eventhough I do own and enjoy VR

Come on, you know the drill, no vr, no .....

Maybe it's time that RaceDepartment does a raliable Survey among it's members, so we will know what the % is among specific game genre buyers. I am sure developers would take a look at it

Do we really need a survey, every where on SIM forum half the post are related to VR one way or the other. No VR in 2019 is dumb, full stop.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

True, VR users and wheel owners are often overlapping group. Too bad Steam doesn't collect data about wheels (and flight sticks), would be also interesting

 

[Ceolmor]

True, VR users and wheel owners are often overlapping group. Too bad Steam doesn't collect data about wheels, would be also interesting

They do. Steam published this in September 2018.

'Racewheels' are only one of 'Everything Else.' By my calculations, that means that wheels are less than 0.19% of all controllers used by Steam players. Which is a lot less than the Steam hardware survey for VR of 0.78%.

"For us, using the same design principles as we did for Colin McRae Rally 2.0 felt like a natural fit,’ said Codemasters’ Product Manager, Matthew Beckett. ‘After all, the “2.0” of DiRT Rally 2.0 was on homage to the title of Colin McRae Rally 2.0 – and although the games have changed a lot since then, our raison d’être has remained the same: to represent rally racing as truthfully as possible. Using this design is a nostalgic tribute to one of our most-loved rally games, but also a promise to our community to deliver the same, white-knuckle experience that Colin McRae Rally 2.0 did all those years ago.’
​

I can see where Codemasters are going with this. I loved Colin McRae Rally 2.0 with my single screen and console controller. Are we sure that Dirt Rally 2.0 will have wheel support?

 

[aka2k]

Yea, I'm skipping this one after the fiasco Dirt 4 was. I'll most certainly buy it in a sale though.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

They do. Steam published this in September 2018.

'Racewheels' are only one of 'Everything Else.' By my calculations, that means that wheels are less than 0.19% of all controllers used by Steam players. Which is a lot less than the Steam hardware survey for VR of 0.78%.

Just to add to this, not everyone of those 0.19% and 0.78% overlap. So let's say, based on the 118 thousand number from the controller overview, 100k owns both VR and a wheel (I think it is a fairly optimistic number, but for the sake of easy numbers)
That's a good number, but still only less than 10% of all DiRT Rally owners. And I don't think every single wheel+VR user is a person who would by DiRT Rally 2.0 either.

I agree that VR should be a part of any serious sim-game, but I have a feeling, and have had that for some years that Codemasters are more board-driven than the usual sim-genre developer. They are not as free as e.g Kunos to do just what they like, it all has to be signed off from the board, and they think what it would cost to implement versus the potential revenue from it.

 

[Ceolmor]

I agree that VR should be a part of any serious sim-game, but I have a feeling, and have had that for some years that Codemasters are more board-driven than the usual sim-genre developer. They are not as free as e.g Kunos to do just what they like, it all has to be signed off from the board, and they think what it would cost to implement versus the potential revenue from it.

Agree. Codemasters even said this in an early interview about DR 2.0, something to the effect that it is not a dev decision, it is a board decision.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

I agree that VR should be a part of any serious sim-game, but I have a feeling, and have had that for some years that Codemasters are more board-driven than the usual sim-genre developer. They are not as free as e.g Kunos to do just what they like, it all has to be signed off from the board, and they think what it would cost to implement versus the potential revenue from it.

Agree. Codemasters even said this in an early interview about DR 2.0, something to the effect that it is not a dev decision, it is a board decision.

It's not just a feeling. CM is actually run that way since Reliance bought 50% of CM shares in 2010 and then in 2013 become majority shareholders. The DiRT team (even the F1 team) has its hands tied. Lee Mather (F1 creative director) spelled it out in an interview last year:

"I'll have a very high level idea and we'll have taken everything that's gone on board before it, because obviously we've got a huge amount of data based on what we've done before. There's a lot of Formula One fans in the office and they'll always have their say. Then as a design team we'll start to formulate a picture of what we want to do and start to speak to the wider team, so we'll gets some of the production guys involved, so that they get some idea as to whether that's even achievable in scope. Then we start to pitch it to the senior executives, see if they buy into it and get excited by the concept of what we want to make. Once they're happy with everything, then we get into production and off we go."

This is why Codemasters suffers from thin content rally games; buggy F1 games; features from previous titles that disappear in new titles; VR disappearing from DiRT; lots of marketing doublespeak; ignoring their fans while they hype away about how they implement our ideas/wants; abandoning their games to quickly organize another cash grab.

From what I understand Paul Coleman had a hell of a time convincing the suits to allow him to make DiRT Rally, with its EA and two-way communication with fans. DiRT 4 was definitely a corporate game. There is no way a game director would release that in good faith. And since D4 bombed here we are less than 18 months later and CM is hyping the hell out of DiRT Rally 2.0 (I view it more of a DR 1.5 or D4 2.0 given the tiny tidbits of ambiguous info they are releasing and the fact that they totally ignore any question regarding content and features (both offline and online).

And the fact that the Deluxe Edition has some interesting fine print stating that DLC track and car quantities can be reduced at any time without warning is quite worrying. I don't remember ever seeing any Season Pass for any game with fine print like that.

So yeah, it's not just a "feeling" that CM is a boardroom-dominated developer. It's the unfortunate reality of how things are run there.

 

[Patrik Marek]

I did enjoy Dirt4, but Dirt Rally probably more, which is why by giving them moeny I want to support them to keep makng these ! waiting for Skoda !!

many games don't deliver all the expectations, but if we only support the best of the best, gaming industry will move to the mobile phones with pay to win schemes, and that's not gaming that I want to enjoy

Codemasters made imo huge improvements over their games form say 5-7 years ago

Not saying we should always support every game, as example I tried Crew2 and that one - eventough visually much better then Crew1 , felt like step back and compared to Forza Horizon it's really not that great

for for Rally games, what else good is out there ? WRC7 ?

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

for for Rally games, what else good is out there ? WRC7 ?

My personal favorite this gen is SLRE. If you can look past the poor sounds and graphics, you will find an excellent handling model, large and varied car list and a whopping 500km of special stages (if you include them reversed) as well as Pikes Peak and five rallycross circuits. And you can use any car on any track unlike DiRT. The Group S Prototypes DLC is something you won't find in any other rally game except Gravel, which is a more laid back off road racer.

WRC 7 is decent. OK handling, meh FFB, meh sounds. Excellent stages and modern WRC cars are a plus.

V-Rally 4 is enjoyable but with a very forgiving handling model. Definitely a more casual game. The stage generator is the highlight.

 

[Patrik Marek]

interesting about the SLRE,
when I played it some time ago, I disliked it the most from all the other ones

for me the favorite was Dirt Rally and the only thing I didn'tliked much about it was how the handling felt on tarmac, but I think it got bit better with few updates

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

ah, finally we're getting past that vr blabla. amazing how a small but vocal minority can basically hijack any "new game on the horizon" thread on this forum. we should really just build a vr subforum so one can actually talk about all the other info that was in the film, i.e. the car reveals. did i spot a porsche? and an american muscle car? and some rehashed stage footage from mini-clips before with some less than convincing golf driving behaviour?

 

[Peter Kerényi]

DiRT 4 has a bug on my system where the controls are never saved and I have to set it up every time I launch the game with my T300 F1 Advanced setup. That is the main reason I didn't get into it. DiRT Rally or any other Codemasters game does not have this problem, but in DiRT Rally the in-game wheel animation does not follow the real wheel. Since I play every sim in cockpit with the wheel visible (and I want to keep this consistent) I could not get into it. I have hopes for DiRT Rally 2.0, but at the same time I am afraid some little detail will bug me and it's going to be another rally sim sitting on the shelf. F1 2018 is great though so I have a bit of confidence now in the developers, but not 100%.

 

[Hanzaleski]

I have no VR, but it would be nice I tried DR on PSVR and there is not a better virtual feeling than going sideways and looking out from the door window
I also liked that I could go for hours 150Km/h between trees and nothing. Then I stopped, looked left, go front, back, front, and throw up

 

[Ramipril]

They do. Steam published this in September 2018.

'Racewheels' are only one of 'Everything Else.' By my calculations, that means that wheels are less than 0.19% of all controllers used by Steam players. Which is a lot less than the Steam hardware survey for VR of 0.78%.

Interesting thing to note-

As I pointed out in the thread about that survey, it only counts your wheel if it is connected at the time of the survey, and even then, if you have any other controller plugged in at the same time eg. XBox controller, it doesn't register the wheel at all, only the controller.

Same goes for HOTAS flight stick and any other niche controllers, any other primary controller that is plugged in at the same time is the only data it will send.

I wonder if the survey handles VR headsets and primary displays similarly.