Codemasters has confirmed that no additional expansions shall be launched for 2023’s EA Sports WRC, and that the crew has “reached the tip of the street” engaged on the sport. Unfortunately, alongside this information comes the extra affirmation that Codemasters can be “pausing improvement plans on future rally titles.”
The veteran UK racing studio published the announcement via EA.com.
“Our WRC partnership was a fruits of types for our Codemasters journey with off-road racing, spanning many years via titles like Colin McRae Rally, and Dirt,” reads the studio’s assertion. “We’ve offered a house for each rally fanatic, striving tirelessly to push the boundaries and ship the exhilarating thrill of driving on the ragged edge. We’ve introduced collectively extremely gifted racing builders, labored with among the sport’s icons, and had the chance to share our love of rallying.”
The World Rally Championship itself has acknowledged the news on social media, with a largely imprecise remark noting the “WRC gaming franchise goes in an formidable new course with extra information coming within the close to future.”
EA pulling the pin on Codemasters rally video games shall be a bitter capsule to swallow for motorsports followers following EA’s acquisition of the storied British racing studio again in 2020.
The information is available in wake of stories of over 300 layoffs at EA, together with roughly 100 at Respawn Entertainment.
Codemasters has been on the spearhead of rallying video video games for nearly three many years, relationship again to 1998’s iconic Colin McRae Rally. The pioneering rally simulation kicked off a sequence of profitable and extremely esteemed racing video games. Following the loss of life of Colin McRae in 2007, the sequence retired McRae’s title and continued its evolution as Dirt. 2009’s Dirt 2 (often known as Colin McRae: Dirt 2 in Europe and different PAL recreation territories) marked a transitional level for the sequence, which was reinvented once more as a hardcore simulation in 2015’s Dirt Rally.
2023’s EA Sports WRC was the primary Codemasters rally recreation to carry an official WRC license since 2002’s Colin McRae Rally 3. IGN’s evaluation notes EA Sports WRC took the class-leading really feel of 2019’s Dirt Rally 2.0 and stuffed it into an formally licensed World Rally Championship expertise, like a metal rod in Timo Rautiainen’s bottom, however its technical gremlins left it feeling like a “nice racing recreation attempting to combat its means out of an unfinished one.” Subsequent updates sought to enhance its display tearing points.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN opinions crew. You can observe him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him issues about stuff.
