Review
Played on: Xbox Series XReleased: 2021
It's time to a look at one of the WRC games and what better place to look than the latest WRC10, which came out last year.
Admittedly, I’ve spent little time with the official WRC games through the years. I’ve noticed them around ever since they first appeared way back in 2001 on the PlayStation 2. Rally games have interested me more in my adult years and having spent a lot of time with Dirt Rally 2.0 and some of the earlier WRC titles, namely WRC8 and WRC9. WRC9, which I played to completion, I really enjoyed.
WRC10 is very close to WRC9 and thus I’ll review the latest one.
Yearly releases tend to submerge slightly into one big haze, but what really makes WRC10 stand out is the large amount of content. There is, of course, the latest rally season, which travels through a vast number of countries, each sporting their own visual environment, with several rally stages within.
Yearly releases tend to submerge slightly into one big haze, but what really makes WRC10 stand out is the large amount of content. There is, of course, the latest rally season, which travels through a vast number of countries, each sporting their own visual environment, with several rally stages within.
Added to the mix is a chunky 50th anniversary WRC mode. The latter pits you in famous rally sections through the years, in vintage rally cars. It’s a neat mode to celebrate the fifty years of official rally racing, as well as test out the performance of old classic cars.
There's also a comprehensive online mode, with a playable co-driver function too.
WRC10 is clearly best played with a steering wheel and my G925 does the job well. Although the vibration is set far too high default, making the whole wheel vibrate violently noisy when the car spins. I also played a lot with a controller but be aware that the default settings make the cars feel slightly twitchy and erratic in their turning. There's some feeling of weight to the cars the controller option is missing, you can dig into the detailed controller settings to fix this but they should have tweaked this for default.
My first impression, that has stood out for recent WRC releases developed by Kylotonn, are the incredibly well designed and detailed rally stages, featuring the layout of their featured rally season. Each county has a distinct visual appearance and road surface, typical for their world location.
I had a ton of fun completing WRC10, the main Career mode lets you participate in an entire rally season, as well as manage a rally team outside of the driving too. You’ll have to recruit engineers, a meteorologist, mechanics and so on. Trying to keep repair times low and team morale high.
WRC10 is clearly best played with a steering wheel and my G925 does the job well. Although the vibration is set far too high default, making the whole wheel vibrate violently noisy when the car spins. I also played a lot with a controller but be aware that the default settings make the cars feel slightly twitchy and erratic in their turning. There's some feeling of weight to the cars the controller option is missing, you can dig into the detailed controller settings to fix this but they should have tweaked this for default.
My first impression, that has stood out for recent WRC releases developed by Kylotonn, are the incredibly well designed and detailed rally stages, featuring the layout of their featured rally season. Each county has a distinct visual appearance and road surface, typical for their world location.
I had a ton of fun completing WRC10, the main Career mode lets you participate in an entire rally season, as well as manage a rally team outside of the driving too. You’ll have to recruit engineers, a meteorologist, mechanics and so on. Trying to keep repair times low and team morale high.
As well as the scheduled main rally events, in your yearly calendar, are smaller events like test runs, manufacture try-outs and team building events. If the the team management sounds daunting, it really isn't, you can always opt for the Season based singleplayer, which is basically the same as the Career option but without the team management.
New for WRC10 is the ability to make each rally event shorter, with fewer rally stages per country. Perfect for less experienced players. You can even begin rallying in the top tuned, and extremely fast, WRC cars from the get go. However, the are lower class stages like WRC2 and WRC3 are best way to begin your journey gently.
New for WRC10 is the ability to make each rally event shorter, with fewer rally stages per country. Perfect for less experienced players. You can even begin rallying in the top tuned, and extremely fast, WRC cars from the get go. However, the are lower class stages like WRC2 and WRC3 are best way to begin your journey gently.
Completing a season with good results, allows you to climb into the higher-class cars for your next season and so on. There's even a, level based, skill point system to improve aspects like crew recruitment, cars parts, repair times , weather predictions and so on. Simple, but a neat way to engage the player more between the actual rally events.
Graphically, WRC10 does a very respectable job, occasionally looking a little bland in fog and night races. In general, the attention to roadside detail is great. The way nature elements like rock, mountains, trees and sunlight is depicted delivers pretty rally stages to speed past in sunlight. Not the overall most consistent visuals in weather conditions, but mostly it’s genuinely pretty.
Graphically, WRC10 does a very respectable job, occasionally looking a little bland in fog and night races. In general, the attention to roadside detail is great. The way nature elements like rock, mountains, trees and sunlight is depicted delivers pretty rally stages to speed past in sunlight. Not the overall most consistent visuals in weather conditions, but mostly it’s genuinely pretty.
They’ve nailed the way a road twists and turns through a landscape far ahead and how it’s natural elements blend into it all though.
It even features a few graphics options to choose from in the Xbox Series X version I played. The 30fps, 4K mode is a "no thanks", racers need higher framerate! I ended up playing mostly in the balanced mode, which sets the graphics to a good balance of detail and resolution to reach 60fps. There’s even a 120fps mode, which looks better than WRC9’s 120fps mode, but loses a lot of crispness and detail compared to the balanced option.
What I found a little disappointing though, were framerate drops in balanced mode, while the 120hz fixed this thanks to my VRR TV, as framerates fluctuating from 120 down to 90 aren't noticeable. For most players, balanced will be fine and dips aren't very frequent. For more serious racing fans the 120hz option is the way to go with a smoother sensation to speed and super responsive controls, provided you have VRR support.
Although Dirt Rally 2.0 is the realism king, with the same modern and visual quality of this title, I found WRC10 to have more substance to its main mode and feels less auto generated than Dirt Rally’s tracks. It's way more suited for newcomers and has a lot more variation.
It even features a few graphics options to choose from in the Xbox Series X version I played. The 30fps, 4K mode is a "no thanks", racers need higher framerate! I ended up playing mostly in the balanced mode, which sets the graphics to a good balance of detail and resolution to reach 60fps. There’s even a 120fps mode, which looks better than WRC9’s 120fps mode, but loses a lot of crispness and detail compared to the balanced option.
What I found a little disappointing though, were framerate drops in balanced mode, while the 120hz fixed this thanks to my VRR TV, as framerates fluctuating from 120 down to 90 aren't noticeable. For most players, balanced will be fine and dips aren't very frequent. For more serious racing fans the 120hz option is the way to go with a smoother sensation to speed and super responsive controls, provided you have VRR support.
Although Dirt Rally 2.0 is the realism king, with the same modern and visual quality of this title, I found WRC10 to have more substance to its main mode and feels less auto generated than Dirt Rally’s tracks. It's way more suited for newcomers and has a lot more variation.
Although it doesn't quite hit the high notes of Dirt Rally 2.0 car physics and overall presentation quality. Hardcore sim fans will prefer Dirt Rally 2.0, but that's a damn hard game, so if you're nwe to rally racers, go for WRC10!
If you’re into rally racing you should own both, but I was very pleasantly surprised to how addictive and varied WRC10 was. The attention to detail of the rally stages is great and the balance between playability and realism for newcomers is a great place to begin.
For the next release I’d like a little more polish on the performance and a weightier car feeling when playing with a controller.
If you’re into rally racing you should own both, but I was very pleasantly surprised to how addictive and varied WRC10 was. The attention to detail of the rally stages is great and the balance between playability and realism for newcomers is a great place to begin.
For the next release I’d like a little more polish on the performance and a weightier car feeling when playing with a controller.
