The World Rally Championship is celebrating 50 years. WRC 10 is just the treat for rally fans letting them take part in rally events starting from 1973 till today with their brand new Anniversary mode. I'll be comparing it against the well known Dirt Rally 2.0 since it's their only competitor as the current Dirt 5 is an arcade game.
Gameplay:
WRC 10 includes a lot of content like a career mode where players will be able to take part in rally races while managing your crew, seasons mode for those who aren't so thrilled about managing your team, the anniversary mode, an extensive livery editor, challenges mode, a co-driver mode, split-screen and a lot more. We gotta appreciate the devs for keeping this feature. I mean no other racing games offer split-screen nowadays.
There are even training modes that feature a lot of different courses for you to practice on which are useful for skill development. There is an immersive voice option for the co-driver which is pretty neat and adds an extra layer of immersion when rallying.
The game features a tonne of locations and stages. As always, WRC 10 locations and stages don't even compare with a game like Dirt Rally 2.0. There are a lot more detailed and the stages itself are much more fun to drive on due to its variety as well as its technicality.
Graphics:
The graphics look better yet not anything revolutionary. This gameplay was recorded at 1440p at max graphic quality settings since I was only getting around 30fps at 4k. I know I'll be upgrading my GPU soon.
The game looks good in a lot of locations. A little too dark in others. A more realistic approach compared to Dirt Rally 2.0's vivid look. But honestly, I prefer the latter. I'm not sure if this is a game engine limitation but if the devs could improve just the lighting, this would be a gorgeous game. The contrast is a bit too much for some stages. The shadows being almost pitch black, was affecting the gameplay. Visibility was an issue on stages that had a lot of trees branches above. Turning on the headlight solves the problem but I don't think there should be a case where players need to turn their headlights on to see the road clearly, in the middle of the day.
Audio:
The car sounds have been arguably the most criticized area in the previous WRC games. But I am glad to say they definitely sound better as all the car sounds were re-recorded from the actual rally cars. It does sound very good but maybe not yet up to the standards of games like Dirt Rally 2.0 which in my opinion has the best car sounds in any game racing game. But trust me the rest of the cars sound only better.
For some reason in the replay setting, most of the sound effects like the crackles, pops, gear shifts, turbo flutter, etc were absent. This is a bug for the pre-release version, and I hope it is fixed for the final version. This is a big problem for me as I normally record the replay of the race so that I can get multiple perspectives of the same race but without those extra effects, the replay wouldn't sound good at all. If this is fixed, I can safely say the cars sound pretty neat in WRC 10.
Physics and Force feedback:
Physics and FFB is probably the most focused area in WRC 10. They felt right. Very good but yet not perfect. The loss of grip in asphalt felt pretty weird when doing handbrake U-turns. If the handbrake is engaged a little longer than needed the car would do a slingshot 180 as if the rear has 0 grip. This makes it very hard to master acute hairpins. Maybe it's just me but I don't think those WRC cars in real life act this way.
The in-game steering wheel hardly moves at all, I wish the devs would fix this as this has been the case with the previous WRC games.
The 'auto clutch' feature isn't necessary as it makes the use of clutch pedal when driving older rally cars pretty much useless. The damage model works very good as well. Cars take external and internal damage. But it's no BeamNG, it shouldn't have to be either.
The FFB felt good from the get-go, it only got better after tweaking the settings. Other than the minor issues I mentioned earlier, WRC 10 has way better force feedback system than Dirt Rally 2.0 and arguably better physics as well, but I'm not a rally driver in real life so I can't promise on that.
Conclusion:
WRC is the go-to game for wheel users. The only gripe I have is the replay sound bug which really bothered me. Most of the negative points I made on this game are only minor ones. If they would've perfected the graphics and car sounds much more, I don't see myself going back to Dirt Rally 2.0 any time soon. I'm not sure how it will play on a controller but I would hope it's manageable with the assists turned on.
The force feedback, the physics, the better sounding cars, the multitude of real stages to drive on... what more do you want from a rally sim! This is probably the closest most of us can enjoy rallying and I'm not complaining. GG devs!