STACK #229 November 2023

GAMING FEATURE

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FROM TRACK TO SCREEN

We asked Ross how Codemasters go about recreating every detail of the official WRC cars for the game… “We’re in a fantastic position where we work with the teams and WRC to get all the reference material that we could ever need to bring them to life in-game. It starts with the teams giving us access to their CAD designs, and WRC provides detailed photo reference from every angle. The Vehicle Art team then uses all this to create an accurate model of the car and all the details of its livery before handing it to our Gameplay Team, who are responsible for the handling. “Here they’ll pore over all the technical specs and implement those as their first step before working with drivers or interview references to really capture the feel and characteristics of each one. Lastly, we have our Audio Team who go out and do all manner of recordings of the car being driven to capture its authentic sound.”

The DiRT Rally games are history, as it’s time for EA Sports WRC – meaning that the official FIA license is now onboard. We chatted with Ross Gowing, Codemasters’ senior creative director, to find out more. Words Amy Flower

How exciting has it been getting the official WRC nod, and what options has it opened up for you? We always felt that combining the quality of our studio’s rally games with the WRC license and being able to represent the pinnacle of the sport would be a perfect match, and I’m glad to say that has turned out to be true! Working with WRC has given us access to an incredible amount of research and reference material and access to all the teams, which has helped us push our authentic approach to rally even further and build a really incredible game. The game engine is changing from Ego to Unreal Engine.What has this brought to the table for punters, and what new opportunities has it offered you? Unreal Engine has enabled us to lift all the handling and physics from the DiRT Rally series, put it in the new engine, and then set to work on overhauling the way cars behave on asphalt and further refining the great feeling we

and more confident with their driving.

How big a stable of cars, and tracks to race them on, will we have to play with at launch this time out? At launch you’ll have a total of 78 and then another 68 from recent years all the way back to the 1960s. In terms of locations, we have 17 available on the disc (and one extra due to arrive as a free update) which total more different cars to drive – ten from the current season of WRC/WRC2/JWRC, Is there anything new and cool to look forward to for online multiplayer? Online multiplayer now supports cross-platform play and 32-player sessions, as well as the ability to save a championship you’ve created in Quick Play Solo as a template and load it straight into your online lobby. With Australia not being a part of the WRC since 2019, will we get any challenges from years gone by featuring any local races? We have included a bonus location called Fanatec Rally Oceania which captures a country from that part of the world, but sadly no we don’t have the official Rally Australia, sorry! than 600km of unique stages.

• EA Sports WRC 5 is out Nov 3

already had on gravel. On top of that, we’ve been able to use all the tools and workflow of Unreal to build much longer stages at a quality level higher than we were ever able to do previously. Being simulations, the DIRT Rally games are renowned for their ability to be rather punishing. Are you lightening the load at all with any options for those new to the sport? We’ve added some extra options for new players, most notably our ‘Throttle Clamping Assist’, which focus testing has shown really helps people keep the cars under control. There are also ten lessons on each of the three different surface types in our Rally Schools to help players learn everything they need to know to get started. The assists are completely scalable and optional, so if you’re an experienced sim player, you can leave them all switched off and play the game as a sim, and new players can tweak them as they get more

54 NOVEMBER 2023

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