The official game of the World Rally Championship is not a glossy racer for everyone, but a motorsport treat for those who haven’t forgotten how to practice.
WRC 10 has positively surprised me and yet leaves me sad. On the one hand, I had a lot of fun with this rally simulation. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so intensively involved in mastering individual tracks and I think that the French developer Kylotonn has worked out the characteristics of the individual locations very well.
On the other hand, it’s a shame that the studio has to hand over the WRC licence to Codemasters in 2023. So an end to the positive development that has been noticeable since 2015 is unfortunately in sight. In addition, the game cannot deny inheriting the legacy of its predecessor, which is just twelve months old: Career structure, skill tree, menus, included rallies – if you know WRC 9 like the back of your hand, you’ll stumble across a lot of copy & paste; analogous to Milestone’s MXGP games, a studio can’t do otherwise in a tight annual rhythm.
In the end, this discreet update character of WRC 10 must of course be taken into account when determining the rating. Especially in comparison to the AAA racer Forza Horizon 5, which dominated the racing game headlines in November, it is exciting to see what a simulation specialised in a specific motorsport area can currently offer. In addition, we have not reviewed the last WRC episodes at GlobalESportNews, so that a somewhat more fundamental consideration is appropriate – you have requested the test here as part of our Forgotten Pearls 2021.
World Rally Championship like in real life
At its core, WRC 10 is of course a simulation that aims to do justice to the real World Rally Championship: it includes the off-road king class WRC and its 2021 race calendar, including the four new rallies in Croatia, Belgium, Estonia and Spain. The powerful WRC cars will be joined by vehicles from the WRC 2, WRC 3 and Junior WRC classes.
Because the World Rally Championship celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, Kylotonn is giving WRC 10 extensive “retro” elements, including classic rallies in Greece, Germany or Argentina, for example. Of course, including the legendary Group B vehicles such as Audi Quattro or Lancia Delta. The unbridled horsepower monsters feel quite different from the very sensitive, precise rally racers of the modern era.
The driving experience is one of WRC 10’s greatest assets: the steering wheel or gamepad controls are direct, accurate, comprehensible and pleasantly simulation-heavy without completely overwhelming you. Vehicles drift, skid, break away, but with practice they can also be moved over gravel and asphalt in a damn fine way.
After a familiarisation phase, it is ultimately not the stubborn vehicles but the challenging tracks that want to be tamed. They capture the entire spectrum of the rally cosmos, setting you high-speed sections on asphalt as well as muddy tracks or narrow passages between rock face and abyss. And above all, they demand enormous concentration for many minutes.
Only with foresight, a good understanding of curves and a good dose of precision and caution can you drift past stone walls, avoid crashing left or right and manoeuvre your car perfectly through narrow passages such as bridges or tunnels. A protruding stone on the inside of a curve or a bump in the road can make the difference between victory and defeat, especially since Kylotonn has decided against a rewind function.
Management light
In the soberly presented but extensive career, there are always small diversions from the normal rally stages in the race calendar, you should also think about rest for the team in between. You have to recruit specialists for individual areas, keep the sponsor happy with good results and keep an eye on the budget planning.
There are also costly repairs between races and a focus on the tyres. Only those who have an eye on the surface and weather for the coming stages can carry a stock of the right tyres and then always enjoy the best grip. Strangely enough, a new aspect of the career, building your own team, is only unlocked after you have played through the anniversary mode; here, the new paint editor also finds a meaningful integration beyond the purely creative romp with colours, shapes and stickers.
If all this is too much for you, you can complete individual or online races, act as a co-driver, start a world championship season without career constraints or dare to take part in the classic rallies mentioned above.
Kylotonn has not picked any special challenges or legendary moments, but the courses are a real gain beyond the purely numerical increase in the number of tracks. The driving experience in the Group B monsters, in combination with the audience that was still standing inches away from the track at the time, provides a powerful nostalgia boost; on top of that, touching the virtual spectators results in painful time penalties.
Generally, the makers have managed the feat of bringing out the peculiarities of the respective countries even without spectacular graphics, both in the retro rallies and in the modern WRC tracks. No question, Mexico has the far more spectacular visuals in Forza Horizon 5. However, even though I have been on the road between Tulum and Uxmal myself, the recognition value was limited for me.
WRC 10 is different: I can’t speak for all the regions in the game, of course, but I’ve already driven through Greece, Croatia, Chile and Argentina in various holiday rental cars, of course decently slower and more orderly, and I have to say that Kylotonn has hit the nail on the head in terms of scenery, vegetation & Co. – and I find that amazing in view of the modest technology.
Editor’s verdict
I’m always amazed at how much fun it can be to work out a good race track: It used to be that way in Sega Rally, I encountered it again at the Nürburgring in Gran Turismo 4 and it’s true of WRC 10 too. With the classic Acropolis Rally from 1973 alone, I can spend hours until I no longer cut the corners too much, slide down a slope at excessive speed or get out of all the hairpin bends reasonably quickly. The wonderfully designed tracks are a big plus point of the game, along with the crisp, demanding driving behaviour.
Add to that the career options and the generally impressive number of stages, and the bottom line is a really successful racing game. Of course, the game loses some ground when you look at the pure progress compared to the previous year. Also, a few features seem not very well thought out (late unlocking of the private teams) or are not explained very well (tyre system). And yet I find myself on the track time and time again, because night races, asphalt rallies and the iconic cars offer so much variety and scope (and are regularly expanded for free) that I’m still not tired of WRC 10 even after the test.
