Electronic Arts is back with 25 years of rally-game heritage built into one game, and coming from someone who has been playing rally games for as long as I can remember, this is one you don’t want to miss. MKAU Gaming was lucky enough to be sent a preview build, and apart from missing a few features, the game played and looked like it was finished.

I was super surprised with the outcome, and as someone who loves car culture and watching the World Rally Championships, I was eager to sink my teeth into this preview. It gives you the ability to race in the WRC, WRC2, and Junior WRC, with all the drivers, teams, and liveries of the 2023 season of WRC. I remember playing the 1994 SEGA Rally when I was younger, and I have never put rally games down since. How far they have come over the years is remarkable.

MKAU Gaming was invited to the off-hands preview, where the developers gave us little teasers of gameplay and how the cars were going to handle, which you can read all about here. It got me super intrigued, especially with the new feature called the “Dynamic Handling System,” which is a multi-surface handling model so you can feel the difference in the terrain. Whether you’re tearing through the dirt or sliding sideways around the corner in the snow, everything feels different, and it greatly changes the handling of your vehicle.

You also have the ability to change how realistic you want the experience when playing. I was humbled very quickly and needed to knock myself down a couple of pegs, but it was still an awesome experience, and it felt different from previous rally games.

The developers have worked hard on the locations of the WRC, and no detail has been left out, with over 600 kilometres of asphalt, gravel, and snow, you need to keep your wits about you at all times, and with the Dynamic Handling System, you don’t have much room for mistakes – the terrain is unforgiving. There will be 200 stages across 17 locations at launch, and it will take you more than one attempt to fly through and master the stage. I kept sliding into rocks or trees when I thought I was getting too good for myself, but each location had its own characteristics and looked absolutely stunning, I can happily say for the first time that the terrain looked realistic. One thing developers never seem to get quite right is gravel, but this title smashed that right out of the park.

For the racers out there who want to dive deeper into customization, you have the option of using “Builder Mode.” You can choose everything down to the chassis layout, what mechanical parts you want to use, and what you want the body’s shell to look like. You have all the exterior customisation parts, but you can also customize the interior, and once your vehicle is complete, you have the option of taking it out, testing it, and making adjustments where needed. For the players who love making something unique, there is also an amazing livery editor, so you can really make your car stand out. I’m sure some more features will be added to this in future updates, but it was some good fun, and for those wondering, I’m still terrible at making liveries. I don’t see myself becoming a graphic designer anytime soon.

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not, but 68 iconic rally cars span the 60 years of the sport, and needless to say, they seemed to excite me more than the 10 current WRC, WRC2, and Junior WRC vehicles in the roster. Don’t get me wrong, the WRC cars are fun to drive, but there is nothing better than putting it sideways, drifting around a corner in a Subaru WRX with the iconic livery that everyone knows. I loved that each car felt different – no car that felt the same, which was great, and it kept me on my toes most of the time.

Moments was a game mode I was so eager to jump into and spend time playing. With 50 years’ worth of history in the WRC, keen fans will get to relive some absolutely beautiful moments throughout history, using some of those iconic cars we have all grown to love over the years. There is a new moment added every 24 hours, each built with introduction videos and real-life footage of the WRC.

After spending some time in Career mode, I’ve concluded that owning and managing a rally team is not for me. I kept seeing the cool cars I wanted, and I wasn’t worried about paying staff or repair bills, so I kept buying cars, and then sitting there scratching my head wondering why I had no money to enter the races.

The career mode is great for the fact it puts you behind the desk, so you need to do things like manage your team and finances, possibly starting from Junior WRC, or jumping straight into the WRC, but if you’re bad with money, like me, I would recommend starting in Junior WRC and working your way up, avoiding spending all of your hard-earned cash on cars that you don’t need just because they look cool and you want them. It was cool that you could still jump in behind the wheel and race in the career mode, even though you were running the team.

There is something about hitting the limiter before the light turns green when all you can hear is that beautiful popping noise before launching into the stage, and the cars sound absolutely unreal. I found myself racing in the third-person view, which I’m not a fan of as I love cockpit view, but the sounds were so immersive that I wanted to hear everything as I smashed through the gears while trying to reach the end of the stage in record time.

The audio team needs to give themselves a massive pat on the back, and this is just a preview build. You could always hear your spotter clearly reading out the stage, and with how great the car sounds, each stage has you immersed, and the nice light music in the menu was a great finishing touch.

We were given a PC build to try out, so of course I tried one race on the keyboard, and I instantly gave up on that idea. While it can be done, racing games of any type really aren’t suited for that kind of input. I opted to spend most of the time smashing through the gears on the controller, because the analogue inputs gave great response times, and the vibrations made it feel so real.

You can also remap the controller to suit what is more comfortable for you, but I could not get my old Logitech wheel to work for some reason. It might be time to upgrade to something cooler, but this game would be awesome with a decent simulator rig that offers some nice feedback, although I’d probably hit more rocks and trees as well.

As I mentioned before, the game looks absolutely stunning, and with the power of the Unreal Engine driving the game, they’ve been able to add an incredible level of detail, so WRC will be loved by anyone who loves rally games. I’m keen to see if there are any more updates to the graphics with the full release because they are already amazing. From the character models to the environments and cars, everything was masterfully crafted and textured perfectly.

Written by: Hayden Nelson