Times like these are trying, of that there is no doubt. That’s why sometimes it’s nice to just turn your brain off and go playing in the mud. That’s what is promised with the upcoming WRC 9, which was announced earlier in the year. The game is all about off road racing, focusing on smaller and speedier cars such as the Ford Fiesta or Toyota Yaris. It also seems you’ll be able to race around New Zealand this year, too.

As announced in a press release from NACON, it was confirmed that one of the rallies you would be able to take part in is Rally New Zealand. It will be returning to the FIA World Rally Championship after being absent for 7 years. You’ll face various challenges in the coastline and wild lands of Auckland. This will join Safari Rally in Kenya and Rally Japan as the three new rallies this season.

WRC 9 will release September 3rd for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC (exclusively on Epic Games Store). The game will also come to Switch, Xbox Series X and PS5, but dates have not been pinned down for those versions yet.

Last year saw the release of The Sinking City. The game came from Frogwares, a company known for their detective games based on Shelock Holmes. The Sinking City took a lot from those titles, but with a more Lovecraft-fare as you discovered the dark, cosmic secrets of a small town. It seems it was a hit for the developer, and they’re going to keep in that same wheelhouse for their next title.

In an interview with Wccftech, Communication Manager Sergey Oganesyan talked in lengths about the game. When asked about its success, he said they were happy with the game’s performance, though couldn’t give exact numbers at this time. He did say it was selling better than their previous Sherlock Holmes games and the deal with Epic Games for the PC version had been helpful.

“Okay, for those who don’t know, we released The Sinking City on PC, Xbox One, PS4 and the Nintendo Switch, and while we cannot reveal the exact numbers, I can say the game was definitely a success for our studio. It is selling better than our previous Sherlock Holmes titles did during the same period of time and continues to do well.

“I’m not sure I can disclose the contents of the commercial agreement [with Epic Games]. But like we have said before, we wouldn’t have agreed to the terms if it weren’t crucial for our studio. This deal with Epic Games allowed our studio to continue doing what we love to do – niche detective games but also prepare for the future. Will we see a sales boost for The Sinking City on Steam? It’s up to the players to decide!”

When it came to the company’s future, Oganesyan was coy about what was next for Frogwares, but did confirm that the game will be familiar. Whether it’ll be a sequel to The Sinking City, another Sherlock Holmes or something else entirely isn’t ready to be unveiled just yet.

“I can confirm we are working on something, but we are not ready to reveal what it is. What I can tell you is that fans best know us for our detective games, and this new game will fit the Frogwares profile – a story-focused detective adventure with minimum hand-holding. But is it going to be Sherlock, The Sinking City 2 or a new IP – that I, unfortunately, cannot say just yet.”

The Sinking City is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC. You can check out our review of the game through here.

The world sure is in quite a state right now with the global pandemic coronavirus, so it’s nice to get down and dirty with some old school racing fun. WRC 9 was just announced to once again put us in the seat of the FIA Motorsport series of the same name. And it’s going to be coming to next gen as well.

You can see the announce trailer below as released via Xbox. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of gameplay, and it seems to be what little there is comes from the previous game in the franchise, WRC 8. That garnered high praise for its fun racing as well as strong campaign, so hopefully 9 will be similar. The game focuses more on smaller cars, such as a Ford Fiesta or Toyota Yaris, blazing on the off roads.

WRC 9 will release September 3rd for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC (via the Epic Games Store exclusively). Nintendo Switch, PS5 and Xbox Series X versions will also come, with more details coming later.

The game gets off to a poor start, with an overly lengthy and very dull tutorial that introduces players to the core mechanics. It has players climb some obstacles, experiment with the two types of vehicles on offer (UTVs and ATVs), and introduces players to it’s drive swapping mechanic; players can toggle their vehicles between two-wheel and four-wheel drive, as well as sometimes locked differential, to change the handling of their vehicle to accommodate different terrain types. The whole thing drags on way too long, and is narrated the entire time by a hilariously boring, and bored sounding, narrator who walks the player through the whole process.

"With an emphasis on approach and path-finding, Overpass attempts to provoke a more thoughtful, methodical approach to off-road racing. It’s a concept with some potential, one that could’ve been a lot more fun, given some more time and polish. Unfortunately, it falls short of the finish line – in pretty much every way."

After the rocky tutorial, players are thrown into the career mode, which is unfortunately dull. It involves a progression system using essentially a web map of nodes, where completing events unlock pathways to different events and, depending on performance, potential upgrades. Time-locked events offer discounts on purchasable equipment and sponsorship deals, which offer exclusive items. Unfortunately, that’s essentially it for the career mode. There’s a leaderboard that dictates your placement in the rankings, and if you place high enough the game grants you entry into the Championship. That’s essentially it for progression.

The actual events fare little better. There’s only two event types in the game; hill climb and obstacle course. Every event is some kind of combination of races of one of these two types. The major problem with this is that the two events feel very similar to one another. Both of them boil down to the same mechanic- how do I get my car over this obstacle? All that changes is the nature of the obstacle. In hill climb events, the obstacle is a pile of rocks, or some downed trees and brush. In obstacle course, it’s a wooden ramp or a pile of tires. But the mechanics never change, making the two events in the game feel like little more than reskins of each other.

This isn’t helped by the fact that the core mechanics just aren’t very interesting. The game attempts to be something like a puzzle game at times, forcing the player to think about their speed and angle and terrain to figure out the best path forward. It kind of reminds me of a 3D version of the old Trials games that were popular years ago. It’s not an inherently bad idea, either, but the execution just isn’t here. The game’s physics mean that the slightest error, or bump against a piece of terrain, can send your buggy flipping on its side, forcing you to reset to the nearest checkpoint. This, in turn, forces you to constantly slow down, or even stop altogether, making the most minute adjustments to proceed. This may be realistic, but it also isn’t very much fun to play. The game captures little of the real excitement of off-road racing. A surprisingly muted sense of speed, coupled with the constant need to slow down or stop, robs the game of the thrill and excitement of off-roading. Meanwhile, the relative simplicity of its actual mechanics means that the puzzle side of things quickly becomes repetitive and boring. Once you learn how to navigate one pile of rocks, you kind of know how to navigate them all.

"The game captures little of the real excitement of off-road racing. A surprisingly muted sense of speed, coupled with the constant need to slow down or stop, robs the game of the thrill and excitement of off-roading."

This is only compounded by the strange emptiness of the whole experience. The game is eerily quiet, with no music of any kind during the actual events. The only sound is the constant whirring drone of your vehicle’s engine, a noise that grows grating quickly. A lack of any kind of spectators or crowd only amplifies the emptiness of the events, which is only compounded even further by the constant bombastic music during the actual menus. The complete silence during the events is a baffling choice, and means that you have nothing at all to distract you from just how tedious what you’re doing actually is. It’s hard to think about anything other than how bored or frustrated you are when said boredom and frustration is the only thing that’s actually happening in the first place.

Aside from the career mode, the game offers two other offline modes, and an online multiplayer, but neither is any more engaging than the career mode. The two offline modes are a quick race option, where you select a track and complete its objective. Once again, these are limited to either hill climbing or obstacle courses, meaning there’s nothing new or exciting to uncover here. The other mode is a custom event mode. It’s essentially identical to the quick race, except instead of picking just one track, you get to select a few of them at a time and do them in sequence. Otherwise, it’s the exact same, with the exact same selection of tracks and the same two boring event types. Online multiplayer is the same as well. You enter matchmaking, and the game attempts to pair you with other players (though in my experience, the matchmaking was rather slow and inconsistent). Once you’re matched, you do it all again. There’s absolutely no variety to any of the content on offer here. Everything is the same two events over and over, with the only differing factor being how many of them you do in a row, and if you do it alone or with other people.

The game isn’t totally devoid of positives. The soundtrack in the menus, while rather limited, includes some solid music. It has a kind of alternative, blues-rock vibe that gives a lot of energy (more than the actual gameplay itself does), and it’s fun to listen to. There’s a large variety of environments in the tracks, and though the dated visuals prevent it from ever being truly beautiful, it’s still nice to have something different to look at. And the game does offer local, split-screen multiplayer, a feature which is all too rare nowadays, and one which is always appreciated.

"The game is eerily quiet, with no music of any kind during the actual events. The only sound is the constant whirring drone of your vehicle’s engine, a noise that grows grating quickly. A lack of any kind of spectators or crowd only amplifies the emptiness of the events, which is only compounded even further by the constant bombastic music during the actual menus."

In the end, Overpass is a game with a decent concept, but one that totally flounders its execution. Repetitive gameplay that fails as both a racing and puzzle game is only compounded by a lack of variety in event types, minimal content on offer, low production values, and slow, uninteresting multiplayer. The game has some good ideas, and I suppose some people might be able to squeeze some enjoyment out of its very slow gameplay. But for me, what was supposed to feel methodical and challenging felt only boring and repetitive instead, and there was precious little else offered to entice me to come back. If you really are still interested, wait for the game to go on sale. You might be able to find some fun here. But overall, Overpass offers far too little, and what it does offer just isn’t particularly interesting.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.

"It’s a passable rugby experience whose gameplay holds up the fundamentals of the sport, but whose barebones surroundings and lacking presentation limit the extent of its appeal."

On the pitch, Rugby 20 translates the core tenets of the sport to create a mostly successful rugby simulator. It matches the basic mechanics of the sport to create exciting minute-to-minute gameplay that can be fun for experts in the sport or newcomers alike. It does a good job of making important moments like tries and turnovers feel important, including the impact of hard hits and the impressiveness of long or difficult kicks. The controls can take a while to get used to, as passes are mapped to the shoulder buttons and primary actions between rucks and defense containing confusingly similar button combinations, but once you get the hang of it, it will eventually become second nature. When things on screen become more chaotic, though, there is a tendency for the game to cause more questions than answers in what you’re supposed to do. These make for frequent moments of button mashing that you can only hope work out in your favor, especially in the early going.

There are a few different ways of running strategies both within a match and from the sidelines, though they make very little impact on the matches themselves. Set plays can be called from within the game, and defensive formations can be changed or adjusted with the click of a button. These allow for consideration of more intricate details for your team and for better control of the game. Unfortunately, there are many moments where these kinds of strategies are unnecessary, as it’s often just as successful to run with default settings or strategies, especially on defense. Even on higher difficulties and playing as a weaker team, I had frequent strings of matches where I would give up few or no points without having to micromanage the defense. While this is a good touch for newcomers to not be bogged down in the details, it’s disappointing to know that supposedly harder matches can be won without having to utilize much strategic knowledge of the sport.

Among the features that make defensive battles so common are the wonky physics and player hitboxes in various phases that pop up frequently. Most notably, players will often teleport significant distances to tackle a ball-carrier despite being a long distance away from them. Kicking and lateral passing can be unpredictable, too, as many kicks and passes will get off despite players being seemingly in the grasp of an opponent, which makes it difficult to prepare for future moves with the inconsistency of where the ball will go.

"Even on higher difficulties and playing as a weaker team, I had frequent strings of matches where I would give up few or no points without having to micromanage the defense. While this is a good touch for newcomers to not be bogged down in the details, it’s disappointing to know that supposedly harder matches can be won without having to utilize much strategic knowledge of the sport."

What disappoints about Rugby 20, though, is not its gameplay, but how barebones the modes surrounding the sport itself are. Apart from the quick online or offline matches and minimal training and challenge modes, there are two major methods to play any kind of long-form rugby season or tournament. The League mode sees you taking control of one of the established teams within the game, which include national teams and other professional teams from around the world, and running through a season of their league. While this mode does what it’s trying to do well, it can never come out from under the impression that a Franchise mode that is so common in other sports games would have been a welcome improvement to keep you hooked over time. There’s very little team management here, and it becomes repetitive after just a few seasons.

The other major mode is My Squad, an Ultimate Team style team creator that works through collecting player cards to improve your team. While this is the game mode with the most promise, it too falls into the trap of being too lacking in content to entice long-term play. Even as you bring it into the manager mode, there’s very little to impact how you play the game. The financial management aspect can be almost entirely forgotten about outside of paying for a player to recover from injury, and the movement up a division within either league, an occasion that should feel like a big step forward in your development as a team, is minimally celebrated. Ultimately, each mode is a thinly veiled method of playing slight variations on the same rugby match over and over. This is a game itching to have a mode to create a player and bring them up the ranks or a much more in-depth multi-year team management mode. Other sports games have found success year after year not only because they have been able to translate their respective sports to gaming, but because they’ve been able to successfully create different ways of playing the game in each of their modes.

Rugby 20 falls short on performance and presentation as well, both with frustrating bugs and a lack of diversity both in the in-game broadcast and the visuals. There are frequent performance issues, including framerate drops that make the game all but unplayable and only end when a match ends, as well as the occasional crash. Within the presentation, the introduction and broadcasters are passable but never feel like they’ve gone above and beyond. The broadcasters’ audio often clips within the match, and the overall broadcast package is worth seeing once and skipping thereafter. The distinctly low number of stadiums is disappointing, especially given how similar many of them look, and, while the mid-match visuals can be pretty, especially with specific lighting and weather settings, the character models and animations leave a lot to be desired.

"Rugby 20 falls short on performance and presentation as well, both with frustrating bugs and a lack of diversity both in the in-game broadcast and the visuals."

One of the qualities of a successful sports game is its ability to take a successful translation of its  sport to gaming and pair it with many different, interesting ways of playing the game in a variety of modes. Despite rugby’s historical failures in gaming, Rugby 20’s gameplay is frequently fun, with flashes of greatness in certain moments. Surrounding that, though, is a list of modes that make very little effort in changing how you play the game or adding any variety to the core gameplay. This, along with a slew of performance and presentation issues, make for a game that really only appeals to long-time rugby fans itching for another taste of the sport. There are many other sports games that do much more to create engaging experiences, and, while there is a hint of potential in Rugby 20 for future rugby experiences, there’s very little here to recommend to those who aren’t already strongly in tune with the world of the sport and who don’t mind playing it with minimal changes for hours on end.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Not willing to back down from a challenge, Big Ant has decided to move ahead with the series despite its stumbles, resulting in this year’s simply-titled sequel AO Tennis 2. And while it seems eager to rectify some of the original game’s problems, there are a number of inconsistencies and game mechanics that bring down the enjoyment enough to make it difficult to recommend to anyone who isn’t willing to tough out the bad to get to the good.

What makes or break a tennis game, of course, is its very fundamentals. It’s here that AO Tennis 2 both succeeds and fails at different aspects, nailing the sense of momentum and split-second decision-making of the sport while simultaneously convoluting the control scheme to the point of frustration. This is due to the fact that both player movement and aiming your shots are mapped to the left stick. This results in the game using a bit of auto-movement to take some of the micromanagement out of positioning your player, but it doesn’t consistently feel great in action since there really isn’t a clear indication of when your player switches from manual to automatic movement.

The steep learning curve rears its head when you realize that the game requires you to get good positioning, aim the ball, and hold your shot button just long enough to get an accurate return ­– all within the span of about a second or two. On higher difficulties, this leaves rallies feeling needlessly cumbersome, resulting in a never-ending feeling of just clumsily getting by. It might feel a bit like the tension of a real tennis match, but it doesn’t translate to being very fluid for the person playing. All of the tedium can be alleviated by bumping the difficulty down to the lowest setting, almost completely removing the need to prime your shots, but doing so ultimately has the complete opposite effect of making the game feel too easy.

I found Amateur difficulty felt both relaxed enough to enjoy and challenging enough to keep me on my toes in the first couple of hours. But even though moving across the court with fairly generous windows for priming my shots felt more empowering, it still never managed to feel as fluid as it should because the game sometimes just decided not register my movements – a problem I weirdly also encountered in World Tour Tennis a few years back – resulting in my player just kind of standing there like an idiot. This happened frequently enough to dampen my experience, and in a game where every point counts, it’s a completely unacceptable problem.

Despite these irritations, I really like the game’s simplistic assignment of shot types to face buttons that make lining up that a ferocious forehand with beautiful top spin feel satisfying. The game’s solid AI will absolutely run you back and forth with hard hits to the opposite corner of the baseline if you let them, so mastering the different shots is a priority right away. Nailing a perfectly-timed slice to give you some time to reposition can mean the difference between winning and losing a game. It’s quite easy to abuse the AI on the lower difficulties though – a fact that will delight or disappoint you depending on your idea of fun. Before I bumped the difficulty up to the third tier, I commonly won points by just pushing up to the service line after my first return and powering a flat forehand to whichever back corner the AI wasn’t occupying.

I was excited to see some of my favorite players and top seeds like Rafael Nadal and Gael Monfils were playable, but it’s a rather jarring experience to see some high-ranking players and not others. The underwhelming total lineup of 25 real-life tennis pros is missing many extraordinary modern players like Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, or Maria Sharapova. As fun as it can be to hit the courts with some of these guys and gals, it’s a real bummer you’re not given the opportunity to pit them against their most exciting matchups.

However, thanks to the game’s incredible player creation tools, someone with enough time on their hands has all they need to design playable characters that look identical to real players. As a matter of fact, the online sharing feature allows you to easily download characters made by someone else, and it’s already stocked up with plenty of lookalikes for popular missing players like Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka. This immense level of customization for created players is staggering, and it’s certainly nice to be able to revisit the tools at any time to change things up as you’d like.

And you may find that you want to do that from time to time considering that you’re likely to be spending a lot of time with AO Tennis 2’s Career Mode. This mode is a joy to play, offering a diverse collection of tasks to complete, matches to take on, and sponsors to earn. When you’re not showing up to press conferences or running training drills, you’ll be tackling tournaments to earn money that can help you improve your player’s various skills. Maybe you want to be known for your deadly backhand, or maybe you want the kind of serve that makes people nervous; pump your favorite skills full of points and prove yourself to the world.

AO Tennis 2 also features a barebones online mode for those looking to take on other tennis fans. Connection issues seemed abundant during my time playing, and people left mid-game regularly, but I managed to have a handful of pleasant matches with a few friendly people. Sadly, I couldn’t find any custom matches, and the Quick Match option results in precisely that: very quick matches. So, while hopping online for some rallies with real people is a nice diversion, it’s hardly the star of the show.

That’s okay, though, because there are plenty of other modes to delve into, and once you adapt to the game’s somewhat clunky control scheme and figure out the right difficulty for your skill level, AO Tennis 2 begins to evolve into a pretty fun time despite its flaws. It’s not an exceptional game, and the steep learning curve is not going to appeal to casual tennis fans, but it’s probably the best tennis title you’re going to find this generation. I just hope Big Ant Studios manage to finally get everything right with a third entry in this series they’re clearly so passionate about.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

NOTE: This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.

"As we follow an iterative approach with our creation tools, there are always new options that we bring into the system, allowing players even greater control over every element of the characters and environments that they create."

What was behind the decision to make all the community created content from the previous game available in AO Tennis 2 as well?

We have a great deal of respect for the incredibly passionate AO Tennis community. They created – and shared – over 20,000 players, and 4,000 complete venues for others to download, and this meant the game itself had an incredible amount of added value, even for people not creating content. Allowing their content to live on in AO Tennis 2 is an acknowledgement of that community effort.

We also thought that it would be the ideal way to launch the game. From day one players have been able to access hundreds of hours’ worth of different content, and immediately customise their game to suit their tastes.

Does AO Tennis 2 make any improvements to its creation and editing tools?

Yes! As we follow an iterative approach with our creation tools, there are always new options that we bring into the system, allowing players even greater control over every element of the characters and environments that they create.

What are the biggest improvements that AO Tennis 2 has made to its career mode?

We really overhauled the career mode for AO Tennis 2. In the previous title, you would travel around the world playing matches and winning tournaments on the way to world #1. That is still the goal in AO Tennis 2, but now you need to be more mindful of your schedule, as fatigue and injuries play a role, and there are fully-animated cut scenes and press conferences to introduce a narrative element to the game. Add in the reputation system, and now it’s not just about getting to world #1, it’s about the journey and how you get there.

"We’ve introduced a number of key improvements to the presentation side of AO Tennis 2. There’s an all-new lighting system, which helps enhance the atmosphere of matches – playing at daytime, afternoon, or at night has a very different feel to it now."

Presentation is often considered one of sports games’ most important aspects- what sort of improvements does AO Tennis 2 make in this area?

We’ve introduced a number of key improvements to the presentation side of AO Tennis 2. There’s an all-new lighting system, which helps enhance the atmosphere of matches – playing at daytime, afternoon, or at night has a very different feel to it now.

We’ve also significantly increased the amount of animation in the game, and introduced new technologies that make players’ clothing move in a more natural manner. The combined effect is a much more authentic game of tennis on your screen.

Was there any particular feedback from the community with the first game that you worked to improve upon with AO Tennis 2?

The community was great in giving us feedback in all areas. From helping us to understand how they were playing the game, through to the features they would like to see in the game, there isn’t much in AO Tennis 2 that wasn’t enhanced thanks to community feedback.

Can you talk about the new Scenario Editor and what it entails?

After introducing a scenario editor in Cricket 19, to a great community response, we did much the same thing with AO Tennis 2. You’re able to set up a match between two players at any point in the match, and then take over that match to see if you can recreate (or change) history. If you’ve got a favourite come from behind win, you’ll be able to replay that match and challenge yourself under the same circumstances.

"We’re still collecting feedback from players from the launch of the game now, so we’ve got nothing that we can confirm regarding plans for patches just yet. We do firmly believe in supporting our games at Big Ant, and AO Tennis 2 will be no different in that regard."

What are your plans for AO Tennis 2 in the coming months, as far as updates and post-launch support are concerned?

We’re still collecting feedback from players from the launch of the game now, so we’ve got nothing that we can confirm regarding plans for patches just yet. We do firmly believe in supporting our games at Big Ant, and AO Tennis 2 will be no different in that regard.

Is there anything else you want to tell us about the game?

Just that we hope people love it! It’s no secret that AO Tennis wasn’t all it should have been at launch, and despite numerous updates and improvements, the whole team at Big Ant really felt like we had something to prove with AO Tennis 2. We’ve been truly thrilled to see the positive result that the game has had from the community so far.

We’ve heard a lot about Cyanide’s Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood but seen very little of the action RPG. That is, until this past weekend at PDXCON 2019 when Bigben Interactive revealed the title for the first time. There’s not a ton of gameplay per say but we do get a better idea of the story.

Based on the tabletop RPG of the same name, the title sees Cahal returning to help his pack. He’ll be going up against energy company Endron, which is part of Pentex, and prevent the destruction of the neighboring forest. To the surprise of no one, Pentex is led by vampires which brings the ancient rivalry into focus.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is in development for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. It’s expected to be out later in 2020. When we’ll see extensive gameplay and learn more remains to be seen but thus far, its premise is tied with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 for supernatural action. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

The Sinking City brought developer Frogwares’ knack for detective games to some good ‘ole fashioned Lovecraft lore and dread of the great unknown. The game released earlier this year for other platforms, which you can see how we felt about it through here, and now it’s time for the madness to come to the Nintendo Switch, and it’s coming much sooner than expected.

As announced by the publisher and developer, the game will hit the console/handheld hybrid in just over a week’s time. You can check out some of the exclusive features it’ll have through here. It will also get a Deluxe Edition that will include the “Worshipers of the Necronomicon” DLC.

The Sinking City is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. The Switch version will release on September 12th. To get a good look at some footage of the game running on the hardware, we got you covered through here.

"While it doesn’t hit every note just right, it’s a considerable improvement with more highs than lows."

Let’s get something out of the way up front: I’m embarrassingly bad at simulation racing games. Though I enjoy the tense, unrelenting challenge that comes from gameplay where every move made can make or break your performance, I’ve never quite mastered the art of gentle trigger pressure and making minute steering movements. I can comfortably make my way through more beginner-friendly games like Forza Horizon with its vast open-world design and fewer barriers to laughably crash into, but WRC’s endless tight corners demand rapid decision-making, and its ever-changing conditions require skilled hands behind the controller.

So, luckily, WRC 8 didn’t shut me out. A helpful training mode gave me plenty of opportunity to practice up and relearn its mechanics, and while I was never able to ramp the difficulty past medium to hang with the pros, I never felt like I was being punished for not being a master rally racer. The game’s improved responsiveness forces you to relearn even your most basic skills, like how best to apply the handbrake in hairpins, so even someone with a long history with the franchise is almost guaranteed to benefit from some time in the test mode.

WRC 8 differentiates itself from previous iterations by adopting a full-blown career mode that focuses heavily on team management. Managing both your calendar and your team means a lot of extra work, but thankfully, it’s all pretty straightforward even for less experienced players. Each new team member adds something useful to your crew, such as a mechanic who repairs your car over time or a meteorologist who predicts weather conditions with fluctuating degrees of accuracy so you can have a better idea of what type of tires to use. But like in real life, predictions don’t always end up being correct, so you may find that, despite your crew’s best efforts, things don’t always go as planned. Still, having these different team members working together unison gives you significantly better chances at success.

"WRC 8 differentiates itself from previous iterations by adopting a full-blown career mode that focuses heavily on team management. Managing both your calendar and your team means a lot of extra work, but thankfully, it’s all pretty straightforward even for less experienced players."

Managing your team is multifaceted. Doing well in rallies and earning additional money through completing objectives (such as not using hard tires for a few rallies) is vital to keep a steady flow of cash to pay them all, and you’ll need to rest them individually to ensure they maintain the quality upkeep you need to succeed. Meanwhile, heading over to the R&D area grants you the ability to apply points to an impressively-detailed skill tree. It’s here where you unlock new types of team members or improve their craft, optimize and reinforce your car, and gain access to new abilities and features for yourself and your team. Navigating the game’s menus can be cumbersome and even periodically laggy, but the vast array of options at your disposal is welcomed.

As you manage your career’s calendar, additional events keep things interesting and supplement the official rallies, such as an Extreme Conditions event that places you in a severely damaged car in extreme conditions and tasks you with making it as far as you possibly can. A bevy of training events allow you a bit of freedom by letting you continue on for as long as you’d like in an attempt to earn medals for beating best times. Having this collection of thing to do in between longer rally stages keeps things from growing stale quickly, and I appreciated the diversity between them.

On the casual end of the spectrum, you can opt to skip the team management of the career mode in WRC 8’s season mode and take part in rallies without getting buried in the details, or if you’re just looking for unfettered access to the game’s 100 stages, quick play can get you behind the wheel driving somewhere beautiful. If you’re a highly skilled player looking to test your mettle, eSports events give competitive you the ability to compete against the best of the best.

"A bevy of training events allow you a bit of freedom by letting you continue on for as long as you’d like in an attempt to earn medals for beating best times. Having this collection of thing to do in between longer rally stages keeps things from growing stale quickly, and I appreciated the diversity between them."

Due to being given an early review code for the game, I was unable to find any online matches. Even so, the normal options apply here – finding or creating a lobby comes with a suite of difficulty and category options to help narrow things down, and a “quick game” option gets the ball rolling without being tasked with deciding between those pesky options. Meanwhile, a split screen option keeps thing old-school for anyone wanting to have some friendly couch competition.

Since each rally comes with its own set of unique weather conditions and road types, WRC 8 demands you adapt each time you get behind the wheel. One rally may see you racing on snowy mountain roads that require you to be skilled at managing your speeds and manoeuvres, and another’s gravel roads may suffer from poor conditions and potholes, demanding that you adapt to the consistently bumpy ride. Considering my low to medium skill level, I’m always a fan of faster rallies that allow me to reach high speeds and take on heart-stopping jumps, but I quickly found that conditions and expectations can change like the wind, so staying focused is mandatory to succeed.

Unlike previous games in the series, the weather in WRC 8 is randomized and dynamic. A massive thunderstorm is unlikely to hit you in the midst of a beautiful, sunny drive through Finland’s countryside. Instead, you’ll notice a slow onset of turbulent weather alongside slowly degrading driving conditions, meaning you’re forced to continuously adjust your braking distances as puddles fill up and mud begins to replace dry, dusty roads. And with cool new features like realistic tire deformation – an addition that sees your tires scrub off throughout the rally and can eventually lead to blow outs – weather can take a true toll on your driving experience and leave you in one hell of a predicament. Visual cues and slowly changing conditions mean that you’re just as reliant on your staff’s predictions as you are on your own driving skills, creating a genuine sense of synergy that drives home WRC 8’s focus on team mechanics in its career mode.

"Visual cues and slowly changing conditions mean that you’re just as reliant on your staff’s predictions as you are on your own driving skills, creating a genuine sense of synergy that drives home WRC 8’s focus on team mechanics in its career mode."

Even on the PS4 Pro, the game’s occasionally excessive screen tearing and pop-in can be distracting, and the sound regularly lags behind what is happening on-screen. Visually, WRC 8 falls largely short of contemporaries like Codemasters’ attractive DiRT Rally 2.0, but it’s not an ugly game. Most of the cars in the game are immaculately detailed, and though much of the architecture is blocky and severely lacking in detail, overall texture quality and lighting brings life to each stage admirably. Unfortunately, damage modeling on the cars themselves is fairly unimpressive from a visual standpoint – no matter how many times I tested it by ramming my front bumper into something, it created the same static damage visuals. None of this is offensively bad when focusing on the ever-intensive driving, but stopping to look around is guaranteed to occasionally result in disappointing results.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.