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EA Sports WRC

EA Sports WRC 2024

Instead of pumping out annual games like EA does with F1, NHL, Madden and many more sports game series, in the case of WRC they have instead chosen to add DLC packs with seasonal content.

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It would be an outright lie for me to say that a year later I don't feel disappointed with what EA Sports WRC is and what the last year had offered. Not because it's not a good rally game, because it is, especially if you run it with a controller on a console. In fact, I'd even call it brilliant in that instance. However, it's all the little annoying shortcomings and minuses for those of us who are super-serious about our sim-racing hobby and thus utilise full-sized racing rigs that EA's first official rally title never really grew into the role, despite promises of lots of updates, as it never really reached its own potential. The graphics (via Unreal Engine 4) were never as polished as I had hoped, real hardcore damage was never added as promised, neither was the support for triple monitors, and although VR was patched in earlier this year, that part of this game is possibly the weakest.

Beyond that, Codemasters has designed more and more accessible tracks in the rally countries that have been added since the game was released and the somewhat strange tarmac physics have not been fixed, which I assumed would have happened in December last year. For those who are content to drive their WRC car without the need for realism, who are more than happy to drive over rocks and do not want the car to break into a thousand pieces if it slams into a pine tree, Codemasters' latest project is a delight. It's just a shame that their focus on "real simulation" has been compromised - on the way there.

EA Sports WRC
The graphics are still worse than in the now five year old Dirt Rally 2.0, which is bizarre.

Instead of releasing one game a year, as Codemasters did with the Formula 1 series, they decided last year to release DLC packs with new stages and upgraded cars from this year's rally season, and recently EA Sports WRC 2024 was released, which for PC requires 13 GB of hard drive space and costs £25. In this pack you get two new rally countries, Poland and Latvia, as well as 2024 versions of the three WRC teams' official hybrid cars; Ford, Hyundai, and Toyota. There is also a new WRC2 car in the form of the Rally3 Fiesta Evo and a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2.

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The 2024 season (Championship Mode) is now divided as this year's rally season is, into Primary Leg and Final Leg, which I think is an interesting division and something that has made me feel that the real WRC is slightly more interesting, as a result. What doesn't really deserve my time, however, are the new stages, which on the whole lack the danger, drama and the challenge that made Finland in the original game feel so challenging and thrilling. There are no real dangers to cause a puncture, which there are plenty of in real Poland and not least in Dirt Rally 2.0. It lacks roadside stones and ditches. This means that I, as a player, can drive at far too high a speed without having to worry about the consequences of a derailment, which becomes even more extreme in Latvia. Sure, Rally Latvia is also in reality a bit like a simpler Finland, but here Codemasters has gone too far with its, in my opinion, brutally boring simplification and downgrading of the drama that the real rally is filled to the brim with and known for.

The roads are pretty much twice as wide as they are in real life, the ditches are smoothed out and flattened, and the amount of vegetation right at the edge of the gravel is reduced to little and nothing. It mostly looks like a golf fairway on the side of the road and it's never any trouble at all to push on too fast and then just swing out to the side of the road, cutting several metres per corner. Neither Latvia nor Poland contain that treacherous rolling gravel of real-life racing, either. In the game it looks more like light brown tarmac than gravel, and out by the roadside there is a complete lack of stones, or coarse gravel, which is always a fact of life in real-life Rally Latvia. The cars do not break down in the way they absolutely should if you have chosen the "Hardcore/Realistic" difficulty level, either. I've had far fewer punctures in my hours of play here than I have in the same amount of time in Dirt Rally 2.0, and in my world, that's just the wrong way to go.

EA Sports WRC
Unfortunately, the new routes are far too easy without challenge, drama or real danger.

What is improved, slightly, is the engine sound in the new 2024 cars because Codemasters has re-recorded all three WRC cars and added that loud chirp from the anti-lag system. That's a good thing. It's an improvement but I was hoping for more. I would have hoped that the sound would have improved more than this over the past year as it becomes clear that Codemasters has reduced the amount of reverb in the cup sound and made the aural portion of EA Sports WRC softer than it should be. I would have liked more engine noise, a lot more gravel smacking against the car's floor pan/wheel arch, and more whining sounds from the sequential gearbox.

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EA Sports WRC
The 2024 Yaris is the best car in the game, and the anti-lock brakes make a marvellous noise.

Poland and Latvia each contain one new, long track, which is then cut, split and mirrored to become 12 tracks per country. In total, the 2024 expansion includes 27 kilometres of new, real road based on real-life rallies and I would have expected more for £25. Wales and Jordan should have been included here along with three iconic 90s cars. Of course, had this package been cheaper and included more challenging stages that didn't feel like they were taken from an arcade game, the rating would have been higher.

05 Gamereactor UK
5 / 10
+
Car physics and force feedback are still brilliant. 2024 WRC Yaris is magic. 27 kilometres of new road.
-
Too little content to charge £25 for an expansion. Still no triple monitor support. The new routes lack challenge and drama.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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