In a sport where the stopwatch is king, it’s baffling that KT Racing seems to have fluffed its timing. WRC 10 – which continues the upward trajectory the series has taken since the French studio took over in 2015 – celebrates the 50th anniversary of a sport that started in 1973, which by my admittedly shaky maths makes this party a little premature. Maybe that’s just to spoil another party, with Codemasters’ picking up the WRC licence in 2023, but frankly I’ll excuse the weirdness, because it has resulted in an absolute feast of a rally game.
WRC 10 reviewDeveloper: KT RacingPublisher: Nacon Platform: Played on Xbox Series XAvailability: Out now on Xbox, PlayStation 4/5, PC and Switch
It’s the 50th anniversary that frames the high points of this comprehensive package, with fresh stages providing a neat tour through the series’ rich history. Having iconic cars is nothing new to rally games, of course, but having some appropriately dressed stages with which to rag them around feels fresh – indeed, there’s a little something of all-time sim great Grand Prix Legends in the experience of seeing icons of the sport such as Michèle Mouton matched with her brutish Quattro, or Didier Auriol with his Castrol-liveried Celica as you’re invited to thread your way through reckless mobs of spectators in period correct stages stripped of modern advertising hoards.
It’s those images of lairy cars parting crowds that get directly to the insanity and appeal of rally, and so it is with their representation in WRC 10. The classics might not boast the out-and-out speed of the current breed of rally cars, but there’s something about tossing an old Abarth around the dusty heights of the classic Acropolis rally that’s quicker to raise your pulse – underpinned, of course, by handling dynamics that are up there with Dirt Rally 2.0 and, dare I say it, Richard Burns Rally in being some of the very best we’ve ever seen in this particular subset of the racing genre.
WRC 10 – November Update Trailer | PS5, PS4 Watch on YouTube
WRC 10’s cars are a varied bunch, and it does well to do justice to everything from the low horsepower, rear engined and frankly pendulous classic Alpine A110 to the lightning quick WRC Yaris that seems to teleport from one point to another, turning corners perfectly on its axis. Wheel support still isn’t quite where it should be, perhaps – always an odd omission given the abundance of Fanatec logos in-game – but on a controller there’s a pleasing clarity to WRC 10’s handling.
If there’s any one particular area that WRC 10 pulls clear from its competition it’s the stages, rich with detail and enhanced by dynamic conditions and time of day. There’s a fidelity to the stages on offer here – and it’s those stages that provide the fundamental challenge of the sport – that’s unmatched, from the expansive roads of the Kenyan safari or the famous switchbacks of Monte Carlo.