EA Sports WRC: General Discussion

[tbtstt]

Possibly a daft question, but I wonder there will be any final update to "complete" the Moments section?

 

[cjr3559]

That was fast. Thankfully the license lasted longer than PD’s relationship with Michelin.

And I was just coming to terms with the announcement of Pac-Man mobile shutting down.

 

[rich m]

What a shame. Thoroughly enjoyed this game, and was looking forward to a sequel.

Guess this means DLC will never make it into Career mode now.
I can’t keep playing the empty Quick Play mode.

 

[Matt Stephens]

Been a fan of Codemasters rally games dating back to the first Colin McRae Rally on PS1, so much so that it always was and still is my favourite racing game on the original PS1.

I’m gutted and genuinely feel for everyone affected by this working at Codemasters. The DiRT/WRC series was their staple for so many years and sickened that EA have pulled the rug and shut up shop.

Surely them buying Codemasters was partly due to them having the official licences for F1 and WRC - something that allowed them to expand their “EA Sports” profile.

It does sound as though the WRC licence has been ended early and they’re looking to pass on the licence to someone else, but Codemasters and their pedigree with rally racing was always my top pick.

Makes me fear for what’s left of Codemasters moving forward as EA have already killed off the arcade DiRT spinoff, Project Cars and more than likely Grid as well. Clearly F1 is their main focus currently, but wouldn’t be surprised if they give them the chop as well if that series continues to undersell.

Hope everyone affected manages to find other roles, this news must have come as a huge shock.

I hope whatever the newer studios such as Lighthouse and Maverick Games are cooking up behind the scenes manage to fill the void left by EAs cruel dismantling of a classic British racing game studio.

 

[TypeRDC5]

Been a fan of Codemasters rally games dating back to the first Colin McRae Rally on PS1, so much so that it always was and still is my favourite racing game on the original PS1.

I’m gutted and genuinely feel for everyone affected by this working at Codemasters. The DiRT/WRC series was their staple for so many years and sickened that EA have pulled the rug and shut up shop.

Surely them buying Codemasters was partly due to them having the official licences for F1 and WRC - something that allowed them to expand their “EA Sports” profile.

It does sound as though the WRC licence has been ended early and they’re looking to pass on the licence to someone else, but Codemasters and their pedigree with rally racing was always my top pick.

Makes me fear for what’s left of Codemasters moving forward as EA have already killed off the arcade DiRT spinoff, Project Cars and more than likely Grid as well. Clearly F1 is their main focus currently, but wouldn’t be surprised if they give them the chop as well if that series continues to undersell.

Hope everyone affected manages to find other roles, this news must have come as a huge shock.

I hope whatever the newer studios such as Lighthouse and Maverick Games are cooking up behind the scenes manage to fill the void left by EAs cruel dismantling of a classic British racing game studio.

From what I read online the f1 contract with Codemasters is only until 2025, if they don't extend that I can't think of any other IP which would they could possibly be working on that would keep them operating.

Unless EA uses their developers for the next Battlefield game, I think they did that with the Need for Speed team for 2042.

 

[SharkyOB]

I'm gutted about this too, I was really hoping we'd get a 2025 season update this year.

On a positive note, I'm absolutely loving the BRC season that @Speedster502 is running in Clubs. You should all join us, and I hope they run another one when this finishes in a couple of weeks 😍

Link to the club:

Welcome to EA Racenet

The racing companion app to EA racing games, where you can Connect, Compare, and Improve your racing experience.

racenet.com

 

[Speedster502]

As @SharkyOB said, whilst this news is really sad the game in it's current state is still great fun to play.

There's some some super clubs out there that are really fun to compete in and give a proper sense of what this game is all about. The community is what's kept me playing this game for so long, and I suspect I'll be playing this for many more years to come.

As for plans for another season of the BRC club...I'll get my thinking hat on 🤓

 

[Pearl Jam]

So there goes my hopes of an official Wales and Scotland rally 🫤

 

[m355y]

DiRT Rally 2.0 will always be there for that, at least. I massively admire the ambition of EA Sports WRC and will play it for a long time to come, I love the length and accuracy of the stages, the physics and the car list. But DR2.0 still scratches the itch too. EA very, very nearly surpassed it, but it just doesn't run as well and that's never going to be fixed now. There's nothing like running Sweet Lamb in torrential rain in an Impreza. All the uncertainty and now disappointment over EA WRC just makes me appreciate what we already have. It's a shame EA is going to be left in an imperfect state but life goes on.

 

[whannel]

Hope the devs can all jump ship to KT and make us an ERC game until they get the WRC licence back.

 

[UKMikey]

Sadly I suspect they're more likely to be moved to work on the more lucrative F1 games instead.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Sadly I suspect they're more likely to be moved to work on the more lucrative F1 games instead.

I don't know, some of the team have worked on rally their entire career I should think given Codemasters history in the sport. I'd love to think they'd follow the license and, budget permitting, join a dev/publisher who actually wants to make it a success.

I wonder if the WRC felt like EA were just treating them like a second rate franchise with small updates and no real drive to make a new game Vs the F1 franchise which gets everything. At a time where the real WRC is trying to push into a period of transition and boost popularity with new events, new regulations etc, they probably want to be treated as a top franchise and EA clearly weren't willing to do that.

 

[m355y]

Could well be. EA Sports WRC was as massive as it was in (probably big) part because it was already there, in development as DiRT Rally 3. The licenced title kinda got built on top of that and the assets merged didn't they. Doing that all over again was always going to be a colossal undertaking.

 

[Tool1312]

I'm sad that there won't be any more dlc, updates, fixes for EA WRC. I'm sad that there's no imminent new game in the pipeline, at least from Codies. Maybe there's something, judging from the cryptic post from WRC.

What I don't get is the kneejerk reactions from a lot of people, it's as if the game suddenly stopped working.

Yes I understand that especially the PC users, there's issues with anti cheat and game performance but that doesn't affect consoles.
And yes, the game could have been even better and more polished than it is but tbh it's still an amazing game to play and far better than anything that KT put out.

To say the game is now dead is a false and misleading statement. The 'dead' part refers to game support insofar as updates, fixes and further dlc is concerned. It's not 'dead' in the context of actual gameplay and playability, nothing has changed in that respect since before yesterday's announcement.
Game support ended for Dirt 2.0 years ago but people still play it and it's still being logged on Racenet, I see no reason that EA WRC should be any different

I think it's more sad that this is going to impact the people that work at Codies as they seem to have been shunted aside by the bean counters at EA.
Hopefully another developer will take up the baton for a new rally game in the future but for the present, just keep playing and enjoying EA WRC as you have been up to now, it's still here, still available and still brilliant

I would also say that ACC is still being played with multiple healthy leagues available despite game support being finished quite some time ago so I can't see EA WRC being unplayable any time soon

 

[tbtstt]

I would also say that ACC is still being played with multiple healthy leagues available despite game support being finished quite some time ago so I can't see EA WRC being unplayable any time soon

Fully agree. Although I wish that ACC had continued to receive support, that didn't stop me from continuing to put a lot of hours into it.

Same applies to Dirt Rally 2.0 and I am sure EA Rally will be exactly the same.

 

[Ken134]

Very sad news that this has happened. I hope PJ and the whole team get moved to another part of EA. I have really enjoyed WRC 23/24 in VR and have bought all the Rally titles that Codemasters released from day 1. I was really looking forward to see what the next chapters were going to bring while they had the license. I was hoping that Codemasters got the license one day so was really excited when they got it. At least we have WRC and it’s a great game so very happy to have it despite what has happened.

 

[m355y]

I think Tool's comment makes more sense when you look on social media and see all this RIP EA WRC stuff and it's ridiculously OTT because no, the game's still there exactly the same as it was yesterday, everything still works, it's not dead, it's just stopped.....being born.

I think we on here all realise that, but we're not going to be the ones melting down on YouTube or Reddit.

Personally, the licence never meant that much to me. I just wanted DiRT Rally 3 and the shame of all this is that I only partially feel like i got it.

 

[SharkyOB]

I just wanted DiRT Rally 3 and the shame of all this is that I only partially feel like i got it.

I don't really get this, EA WRC is Dirt Rally 3 with the WRC license isn't it? So it's what Dirt Rally 3 would have been, but also including extra WRC content like the Rally 1 cars.

 

[tbtstt]

I don't really get this, EA WRC is Dirt Rally 3 with the WRC license isn't it? So it's what Dirt Rally 3 would have been, but also including extra WRC content like the Rally 1 cars.

I could be mistaken, but I don't think that is right: I think some of the assets from what would have been Dirt Rally 3 ended up in EA WRC, but it would have been a different looking game.

 

[MagpieRacer]

I could be mistaken, but I don't think that is right: I think some of the assets from what would have been Dirt Rally 3 ended up in EA WRC, but it would have been a different looking game.

I think aside from Championship mode, what we have is pretty much what DR3 would have been. Even down to the locations, I think career mode is the way it is because it was DR3 with WRC chucked into it, things like not being able to race for a factory team and there being so many events that clashed and whatnot.

I could be wrong but I think some of the quirks come from it being DR3 with WRC added in.

 

[UKMikey]

I feel that without the necessity of including licensed WRC stages Codies would've been free to continue using Ego engine and tailor the stages around that resulting in a better looking game.

 

[PJTierney]

I feel that without the necessity of including licensed WRC stages Codies would've been free to continue using Ego engine and tailor the stages around that resulting in a better looking game.

The engine was chosen before the WRC license was signed. The successor to DiRT Rally 2.0 was always going to be on Unreal and a lot of what was planned for that successor eventually made it into WRC.

 

[m355y]

That answers that, then! I'd also always assumed that if it continued development as DR3 without the licence, they'd have stuck with Ego.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Makes sense really, the locations for DR3 were well underway, Mediterraneo, Pacifico, Scandia, Iberia, Oceania and Mexico, all being built in Unreal before WRC.

 

[Tool1312]

I don't really get this, EA WRC is Dirt Rally 3 with the WRC license isn't it? So it's what Dirt Rally 3 would have been, but also including extra WRC content like the Rally 1 cars.

Well, there are a lot of references in the game, I know it's a small thing but there's several cars that have DR3 on their number plates, one of the Subaru's especially, in 2.0 is showed DR2 and shows DR3 in EA WRC. Might have just been a cheeky nod to what if was going to be as the game was in development before the EA buyout

 

[TypeRDC5]

Lay offs confirmed

 

[Jtheripper]

I think the game looks super, just the optimization isn't perfect, although almost now on ps5 in cockpit pov, and replays.
Just the launch state wasn't ideal really.
Plus on pc i think there's lots of complaints still about that.

I like dr2 looks too, but wrc24 looks more modern ofc, crisper textures, lighting, etc.
At least going from dr2 ps4 to wrc24 ps5..

 

[m355y]

For me much as I love EA Sports WRC it still doesn't run half as well as DiRT Rally 2.0, and now never will. Sometimes it's perfectly smooth ofcourse, but also sometimes you get a random choppy or stuttery stage or a stage covered in bright green slime patches or it turns into a slide show half way through a 30km stage. These things still happen a lot. They happen on Xbox and on PS5, hooked up to either of my TVs. I appreciate the work that's gone into improving it since launch and it's certainly better now but it's still quite an inconsistent experience both on that and on the visuals themselves which sometimes look really lovely and sometimes quite rough depending on the stage or seemingly what mood the game is in when I boot it up.

DiRT Rally 2.0 on an Xbox Series X in its full glory is gorgeous not to mention completely robust in terms of frame rate and performance - this is why personally I still wish they'd continued with Ego. I'm impressed by the longer stages but I think maybe they bit off a little more than they could chew technically and personally when the longer stages in DR2.0 already take up to ten minutes, that's probably enough for me anyway.

 

[Jtheripper]

I did notice that in 3rd person, there's often heavy screen tearing though.
But i never had big problems like missing textures, etc.
And even on long stages, i didn't get more slow downs, stutters.
Maybe depends on weather, tod, and game mode.
Probably happens less and less noticeable too in my usual pov cockpit.

 

[m355y]

I think it’s worse using chase cam, definitely. The green slime bug seems PS5 specific.