DiRT Rally DiRT Rally Released on Console, New PC Content Added

[Paul Jeffrey]

Codemasters DiRT Rally has today released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One alongside some new content additions for PC players of the title.

With a surprise release on Steam Early Access in late 2015 DiRT Rally has won the hearts of many PC racing rally fans long searching for a natural successor to previous king of the off road racers Richard Burns Rally released all the way back in 2004.

Codemasters have diligently worked away adding content, features and enhancing an already strong base to bring DiRT Rally up to a level where many consider the title to be some of the best work produced by the British studio in recent memory.

To celebrate the much anticipated release to console the guys and girls over at Codemasters have added some new content (also available on launch for console) to the PC title in the form of 7 new and exciting cars across several classes within the game. The new patch brings us new additions to the Rallycross scene with an entry level old school Mini club racer style car alongside the altogether more professional looking S1600 Rallycross class that can be found in many regional and nation Rallycross championships around the globe.

Alongside the new Rallycross content PC players have a number of new iconic Colin McRae liveries to enjoy as well as the the manic Peugeot 208 T16 of Pikes Peak fame and of course every boy racers dream car (from a certain era anyway...) the Renault 5 Turbo.

To complement the 208 T16 DiRT Rally now features the classic fully gravel version of the legendary Pikes Peak Hillclimb already found in its more modern guise within the title.

Much like its PC cousin next generation console players have been starved of a strong contender for king of the rally stages for far too long, Codemasters will hope this new release becomes a popular hit for the studio and PlayStation and Xbox players enjoy the title as much as the folks over on PC have since it launched last year.

A surprise new addition to both PC and Console versions of the title is the inclusion of CREST, the Codemasters RaceNet Evaluation and Statistics Tool. CREST is a tool designed to give high levels of data and feedback previously unavailable to players of the game.

Taken from the official DiRT Rally announcement:

"(CREST is where..) you can compare your ghost to the fastest time’s ghost – and that comparison covers a range of different inputs and information, including: sector times, racing line, braking, acceleration, speed, and even which gear you’re taking the corner in.

Giving you live feedback from a top-down aerial view, you’ll be able to slow down time and analyse your performance corner by corner. You can choose to have the tracker follow your cars around the map, or you can control your view manually – choosing to focus on particular segments or corners of track.

You’ll also be able to sort users by assists and input – so if you’re starting off with assists and a pad, you’ll be able to gauge your performance against people in the same boat. And, by the same token, if you’re using a wheel without any assists, then you’ll be able to measure yourself against the fastest of your field"

DiRT Rally is available to purchase in your local games retailer right now or on Steam for Windows PC.

Full PC Changelog below:

GAME

• A stock engineer team are now used in the Service area for Online Events to prevent some players gaining an advantage. This will also occur in Leagues depending on the settings used.
• UI Fix –Users are now instantly informed and moved onto the next run if they unfortunately Terminally damage their vehicle on the start line of a Hillclimb event.
• Achievement Fix – “I am the 5%” unlocking criteria has now been made clearer
• Online Fix –When a player enters the pause menu, their vehicle will now instantly ghost.
• UI Fix –Controller disconnection message is now always showing on top of whichever screen you are on at that time.
• Game Fix –Solved an issue when the option to apply the first perk to your Crew Chief was not showing.
• AI Fix – In a Hillclimb event, the AI drivers will now place correctly if they Terminally Damage in their second run.
• Online –Players no longer receive a Clean Race / Appearance bonus if they retire from the event early.
• Game Fix –Fixed an issue where a player takes 2 joker laps in a row and then their 2nd Joker lap icon disappears due to the AI driver entering the Joker lap.
• Vehicles -The threshold for punctures has been increased, making the tyres more resistant to punctures on landings.
• Controls –Players can no longer accidently unbind ‘Gear Up’ and ‘Gear Down’ controls when re-assigning buttons if they have their preferential transmission set as Automatic.
• Game –Custom Events now use a stock Team of engineers in the service area at all times.
• Game –Hillclimb – AI drivers who terminally damage in their 2nd run will now be correctly placed in the final results screen.
• Leaderboards– Players who use a non-standard character as the first letter of their driver name will now be shown correctly in an events leaderboad

COMMUNITY

• Car Damage – Car parts will no longer clip through the Lancia Stratos cockpit when damaged.
• Animations – Drivers are now shifting correctly when using either of the F2 Kit Cars.
• Online Event – Some cars reported by the community should no longer gain an increase in performance after damaging their car exhaust.
• Reset Lines - Some reset lines around the tight hairpins on the Monte carlo stage, Route de Turini, have been replaced.
• Replays –Car reset points are now the same when viewing a replay as they are in game, removing the possibility of collision issues when watching a replay in slow motion.

AUDIO

• Co-driver calls issues for Sweden have been fixed and minor adjustments to other locations.

GRAPHICS

• Corrected an issue where the wrong car kickup VFX was incorrectly being used after completing a stage in Greece.
• Crowd members in Sweden are now correctly dressed at all times.
• Lighting issues should now be resolved when using a system with 3+ graphics cards in use.

EXPLOITS

• Possible shortcut on the German stage Flugzeugring has been removed.
• Users should now no longer have a second try at a daily event after quitting out via ALT+F4

CONTROLLERS

• After using a racing wheel with H pattern transmission in game, upon rebooting and using a controller, the title will now recognise the change and change the transmission type accordingly.
• Issue where the players controller will continuously rumble during the pre-race sequence for a rallycross event no longer occurs
• Gear up/ Gear down can now be assigned controls when the user has set their transmission type to automatic.

NEW CARS AVAILABLE IN GAME:

• Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak
• Renault 5 Turbo
• Renault Alpine A110
• Opel Corsa Super 1600
• Peugeot 207 S1600
• Renault Clio S1600
• Mini Classic Rallycross

Have a look over at our RaceDepartment DiRT Rally forum for the latest DiRTy chat, news setups and mods as well as our highly popular Rally Club hosting great events for those with a sideways preference...

So it finally arrives on Xbox One and PS4. Will you be purchasing the game? Have you tried the new PC content yet? Which car are you most looking forward to driving? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Rivvern]

PS4 doesnt work with G25/27 afaik. Thats really bad.

 

[ernietheracefan]

Did Burns' Impreza has a correct interior..?

 

[Arne Dopudja]

The impreza has wrong interior, but it's all they could muster. The 6 gears on the focuses really grinds my hears though...

 

[bogani]

Yeah, seems no change with tarmac physics. I personally would've taken another version/pass of the physics in general (including tarmac) instead of this CREST stuff. Which sounds like it's only available for dailies/leagues (no custom events)? From the notes it sounds like they upped the overall tire resistance to punctures. Instead of fixing punctures on landings. Haven't heard anything about any balancing going on either, so the 205 still the fastest rally car in game.

The 07-10 Focus still has 6 gears I believe, great attention to detail by a group of rally "enthusiasts". Apparently just changing the gears for one car is a highly complex process. And still have those silly audio sliders that only go down to 50. I guess adjusting all audio sliders so they go down to 0 just isn't possible with this engine.

So you really don't think these guys are rally "enthusiast" because of a silly gearing mistake in the Focus? It's quite obvious of how passionate these guys are about rally. This game would never have seen the light of day if they weren't passionate. This was a real gamble, something that CM management really didn't really believe in from the get go.

Another physics pass would probably have taken many months to achieve, the V2 pass wasn't even planned at all. Do you really think CREST was as time consuming as a total redo of the physics?
They did one FFB pass and one big physics pass based on Early Access feedback.

Tarmac isn't optimal, we all know that. Personally I think it's due to a quite basic tire model. It works well on gravel as they have done a great job coding multiple layers of surfaces, but on a flatter one layered surface like tarmac the limitations shows up.

Hopefully they can develop a better more advanced engine that can handle many things that are missing at the moment. Like audio sliders down to zero

 

[Skazz]

They have stated that the big thing they couldn't use the existing engine for is proper interaction with the road, for example sweeping the gravel or digging up mud/snow, where each car going through a stage has an effect on the next car, as it does in real rallies. Similarly the current engine has limits on the size of environment, which limited stage lengths.

The big question is how well DR v1 sells on consoles, both for whether they are authorized by Codemasters management to build DLC, and whether they are given the room to rebuild fundamental aspects of the game engine to handle real loose surfaces and bigger environments. I see major improvements to tarmac physics as being linked to the new engine as well.

 

[Matt O'Brien]

It doesn't matter how much they fix or how much new content they add, there will always be moaners moaning as most of the posts in this thread prove.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

too true, for me it's simply the most fun rally game out there, great graphics, great sound great feeling when playing it even though i still cannot get the cars to properly lock up under heavy breaking on tarmac, which at least most of the older models should certainly do, shouldn't they?

 

[gamer19]

I, for an example, wasn't "moaning". Just saying they should care about rally stages diversity, you know... Mexico, Malaysia, Japan,...
And if they aren't that good with tarmac, and we're all agree on that, why the hack they should stick to those kinds tracks ? Forget dumb Germany, give us ...Australia, say.
But I'm sure you didn't think of me on the first place.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

It's annoying to see the brigade that jumps in to try to shield the game from any correct criticism or feedback. Codemasters hasn't relieved the world from starvation, they made a rally game with still some old CM faults, and oversights. They still charged full price for this game. They still have to redeem themselves from GRiD and all F1 games. So do give some room to those customers who are not completely over the moon, or just biased, towards the game, to voice their opinions.

 

[theravenousbeast]

I guess it comes down to the type of player and the expectations for DR.

I was looking out for a sale on any of the older DiRT games at the time it was released and I thought to myself, the price won't go any lower than than so I bought it.

I've never been a huge rally fan but it is fun and challenging every once in a while and DR perfectly fits that. I'm not the guy to learn every inch of every stage\rally so the lack of content doesn't really bother me. I am also not the fastest by any means so I can't see the physics' faults the aliens can. That's what it boils down to IMO

 

[bogani]

too true, for me it's simply the most fun rally game out there, great graphics, great sound great feeling when playing it even though i still cannot get the cars to properly lock up under heavy breaking on tarmac, which at least most of the older models should certainly do, shouldn't they?

The brake pressure is quite low by default, try cranking that up a bit?

 

[function9]

So you really don't think these guys are rally "enthusiast" because of a silly gearing mistake in the Focus? It's quite obvious of how passionate these guys are about rally. This game would never have seen the light of day if they weren't passionate. This was a real gamble, something that CM management really didn't really believe in from the get go.

Did I say that? It's just funny self proclaimed enthusiasts of the sport wouldn't know something basic like that on a car from just 6 years ago. Did it have 6 gears in D3? You'd think a little fact checking before adding something into the game would be standard.

But, ok, they made a mistake. Surely for a game that's trying to be as authentic and realistic as possible made by a group of passionate rally enthusiasts, they would quickly acknowledge their mistake and correct it yes? No, lets let 6+ months go by without a response, and then comment that they can't correct it because it's not an easy fix. The thing is, getting something very basic like that wrong and not correcting it, casts a bit of doubt over other decisions or claims they've made.

And yes, I'm well aware of the DR devs' plight regarding this title. Makes for a good story when there's no outside sources of hardship to battle. Nothing tugs at the heartstrings of gamers more than devs "sticking it to the man" and giving the people what they want. I remember another company that used to be all about that too. Until they realized it was easier to just buy up smaller, but promising projects and ride the money train that consists of Dota2, CS, and Steam.

Another physics pass would probably have taken many months to achieve, the V2 pass wasn't even planned at all. Do you really think CREST was as time consuming as a total redo of the physics?
They did one FFB pass and one big physics pass based on Early Access feedback.

Tarmac isn't optimal, we all know that. Personally I think it's due to a quite basic tire model. It works well on gravel as they have done a great job coding multiple layers of surfaces, but on a flatter one layered surface like tarmac the limitations shows up.

I doubt that CREST was done in a day. It wouldn't surprise me if it took these devs a month or two to get that done. And how long has it been since the last car got the v2 treatment? Over 6 months ago at least (since the testers got access to it)?

Many people months ago questioned how CM were doing these updates. They kept adding stuff, even if bugged and would just move onto the next update. We were assured that after the v1.0 release that it would be all about tweaking, bugfixes, and polish. Hmm.

Hopefully they can develop a better more advanced engine that can handle many things that are missing at the moment. Like audio sliders down to zero

Yep, sounds about right for CM. Build an entire game engine from scratch to have a feature in it that's been standard in pretty much any other game over the past 10-15 years. Glad that apparently you have no issues with the audio levels, guess that means no one else should have a problem then?

It doesn't matter how much they fix or how much new content they add, there will always be moaners moaning as most of the posts in this thread prove.

It doesn't matter how buggy or flawed a piece of software (or any product for that matter) is, there will always be people that blindly accept and even defend what's presented to them. Things like the FFB or physics wouldn't have gotten changed if it wasn't for the "moaners" as you call them.

 

[Matt O'Brien]

I'm not blindly accepting anything, I just don't see how pissing and moaning about it on here is helping in any way. So many people on this forum post like their opinion is the be all and end all.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

The brake pressure is quite low by default, try cranking that up a bit?

sounds good, will try, says the ultra-lazy guy (who just moans a little rather than applying own brains to figure out solutions, sounds like me )

 

[Alex Townsend]

I got it for 25% off on a Steam sale and after a little setting up I'm having an absolute blast on it.
I don't have nearly as much time as I would like for sim racing but from the hour or so I got the other night before bed it was awesome.
A lot less forgiving than Dirt 3 so it took a while to dial out the sloppy driving I'd learnt from that but once I'd got in to it I was pretty happy with it.
Seems to have enough content for me so far too.