WRC 10 tested on PC
We tested WRC 10 on PC for a few hours, therefore, with a technically not very refined version compared to to what we will find in stores in September, but capable of conveying quite clearly the vision of the French team and some of the innovations introduced compared to what was seen in WRC 9.
WRC 10, a Yaris launched into the corners. The new episode will faithfully follow the 2022 season of the World Rally Championship, adding events and features as they are presented. It will offer an improved career and a new classic mode, the 50th Anniversary, to compete with the cars and tracks of the 1973 championship.
There will be four new rallies in the game (Estonia, Croatia, Spain and Belgium), over fifty official teams in the WRC, WRC 2, WRC 3 and Junior WRC categories, twenty-two legendary cars and twelve historic rallies (seven at launch, five arriving via free DLC) including the Acropolis of Athens, Sanremo, New Zealand, Argentina , Germany and Mexico.
Demo
WRC 10, one of the historic cars in action. As mentioned, the WRC 10 demo that has been made available to us will be accessible starting tomorrow for all users who want to download it at the Steam Festival. In terms of content, the package just gives us quick matches across three of the new tracks coming this year: Grdanjci in Croatia, Elva in Estonia and Riudecanyes in Spain.These are rather different scenarios, which we will be able to face by selecting four possible times (dawn, noon, evening or night) and six static weather situations (clear, cloudy, threatening, rainy, storm and bright spells). driving a car between the Hyundai i20, the Toyota Yaris or the Ford Fiesta, the latter available in two variants.
Gameplay
WRC 10, the tracks will include various obstacles on the edges . As expected, the WRC 10 gameplay is not revolutionized compared to the previous edition, but simply refined where necessary, in particular with regard to physics. Of course, there are reactions from the car that for the moment leave a little perplexing, see for example the impacts that are almost always resolved with a violent spin, but otherwise the game moves in the groove traced so far by KT Racing.Before tackling a race it is possible to adjust a whole series of settings, from aids to the setup of the car, and it goes without saying that their impact on the track is concrete. The WRC driving model is in fact basically simulative, with surprisingly ruthless traits that will lead you to try and retry the tracks in search of the perfect stint, avoiding any disconnection that could make you lose control of the car. At the worst there is always the reset of the position, but it will cost you five seconds on the time.
The demo
WRC 10, the weather conditions will include several options. The three scenarios accessible from the WRC 10 demo offer a rather varied experience. The Croatian route is all asphalt and boasts two-lane sections that allow you to push hard enough without ever touching the brake pedal, but there are also some really tight areas where the slightest mistake can cost you dearly and result in a violent reaction from the part. of the car.The rally in Elva, in Estonia, will instead lead us into a mostly dirt track, where the tendency of the car to slip is dramatically emphasized, forcing us to dose with great attention the accelerator to avoid fatal spin. The Spanish race will therefore take us back to the asphalt, but with a particularly difficult section in the middle where we will have to go through a sort of very narrow and all curved passage, protected by walls that are always too close to the bodywork.
Technical implementation
WRC 10, drifting will once again be a fundamental element. Let's start from the words of the developers, who during the meeting with the press said that in terms of performance WRC 10 will reiterate what was seen in the past edition, in particular on PS5 and Xbox Series X, but going to substantially improve the support for the controller. DualSense and its peculiarities. We therefore expect a very similar speech on PC even if, as mentioned, from this point of view the demo shows some too many uncertainties.Using an RTX 3070 we were not able to play at 4K and 60 fps with all the settings at maximum, however, encountering some crashes and an annoying "flashing" effect that disappeared only by going down with the resolution to 1080p. Even in this case, however, the optimization did not give the best of itself, highlighting some too many stutters. However, we are reasonably certain that all these drawbacks will be resolved between now and launch.
As for the actual graphic quality, we are dealing with the most traditional of mixed bags, with some nice solutions that nevertheless often collide with old-gen technical expedients, from invisible walls to a discreet but always rather static public, to finally arrive at a modest effect (see the reflections in cubemap on the wet asphalt) and polygonal models of the cars that sometimes stand out in a unnatural compared to the scenario. The damage to the bodywork is well done.
WRC 10 aims to offer us an even more solid edition in terms of contents, thanks above all to the 50th Anniversary mode and everything that will revolve around it. Very interesting is the fact that all the DLCs will be free, with very few exceptions, and it will therefore be possible to see the next season of the WRC materialize on the screen as the novelties are introduced. The demo offers a small taste of the experience, with three of the new rallies, but it only confirms the desire to remain anchored to the system developed so far, without revolutionizing it. Some aspects are a bit perplexing, but there are still three months left to launch: there is time to arrive in stores with a great game.
