There’s a brand new 2024-season expansion for EA SPORTS WRC, and we’ve been playing it – the question is, has this game moved on enough to justify a purchase?
It’s nearly a year since EA SPORTS WRC Scandi-flicked its way onto PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
British studio Codemasters had snatched the WRC licence from French developer Kylotonn before being acquired by EA, leading to a move away from Codies’ proprietary Ego game engine towards Unreal Engine and all the difficulties this presented.
The critical success of its predecessor, DiRT Rally 2.0, meant WRC had a hard act to follow, but hopes were high EA could use its incredible resources to produce a long line of exciting DLC to sate the appetites of rally fans across the globe.
Sadly, it’s taken until now for the game’s first additional stage and vehicle content to drop, with the onset of the ‘EA SPORTS WRC 24 Locations & Cars Content Pack’, adding the Ford Fiesta Rally3 Evo, the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, 2024-spec Rally1 machines and two new rallies: Rally Poland and Rally Latvia.
Below, we’ll run through our thoughts on whether WRC’s first ‘proper’ DLC lives up to our lofty expectations and discuss whether the game has improved after a tricky start.
EA SPORTS WRC: one year on
EA and Codemasters’ first stab at creating a fully licensed WRC game was generally received positively by the Traxion team. In my review, I surmised that the driving experience was similar to DiRT Rally 2.0’s and retained that title’s attention to detail.
However, the wider Traxion team uniformly agreed that the game’s graphics issues were at best off-putting and at worst game-breaking, with frequent stutters (at low and high settings) caused by shader caching, making the game look worse than its predecessor.
Weirdly, the issues seemed to affect PC users most of all, as our video team benchmarked the PC version against the PlayStation 5 iteration to find that Sony’s console didn’t suffer the same stuttering effect – although frame rate dips were notable.
WRC freeze frame
Way back in November ‘23, I started playing EA SPORTS WRC on Ultra graphics settings at 3440 x 1440. This was a mistake, as I suffered from frequent frame drops and pop-in.
In the end, I had to drop a lot of settings down to Low or Medium to achieve stable frame rates, which made the whole experience quite unattractive at times (and still occasional stutters remained).
With the onset of new DLC, I again tried to play the game on Ultra and again faced some fps issues, albeit nowhere near as bad. Now armed with an Nvidia 4070 instead of a 2080 Super I’d really expect much better results – I can still see the dreaded shader caching in replays, for example.
VR (Beta)
When the beta build of VR was first released for WRC, I found it to be an almost unplayable mess, with frame rates measured in frames per minute rather than frames per second.
Happily, VR optimisation has improved immeasurably since then. With my Pimax Crystal Light, I was able to achieve stable performance at 90 Hz and mostly medium/high graphics settings.
However, the game looks quite smudgy, as if the screen has been smeared with translucent mud kicked up by a passing Group N car, even when the Pimax’s rendering mode was set to ‘High’. Disappointing. VR in EA SPORTS WRC still needs a lot more work, unfortunately.
An array of game modes
The star game modes remain the same. Over time, the career mode hasn’t grabbed our attention in the same way as an F1 My Team for example, but it’s relatively enjoyable and the only contemporary option available for rally fans.
The superb Clubs mode, where competitors gather and run a rally in an asynchronous fashion – warning, permadeath possible – is for many the lifeblood of the game. Extra stages to bolster the variety for this will be most welcome.
For those who would just like to play through a championship with a real-world driver/co-driver pairing, then the respective mode now has an option to switch between last year and this.
Thanks to the new 2024-themed DLC we can finally so goodbye to the rather incongruous experience of using 2023 cars for 2024-based Moments too.
Although contemporary Moments have yet to be scheduled at the time of recording, I’m looking forward to attempting many dramatic scenarios from the 2024 season. Like how about trying to claim Rally Sardegna victory while driving with a puncture, à la Sebastien Ogier this year, instead of losing out to Ott Tänak by 0.2s? Epic!
EA SPORTS WRC DLC pricing
If you already own the game, the ‘EA SPORTS WRC 24 Locations & Cars Content Pack’ will cost £17.99 / $19.99 / €19.99, which is fairly hefty for two environments, two new cars and a bunch of new liveries.
Two further DLC packs are planned for this and next year too, with ‘Le Maestros Content Pack’ scheduled for Winter 2024-25, costing £8.99 / $9.99 / €9.99, featuring two new stages (Rallye Monte Carlo: Briançonnet and Vodafone Rally de Portugal: Fafe) and unannounced cars.
Additionally, the ‘Hard Chargers Content Pack’ is slated for Spring 2025, priced at £8.99 / $9.99 / €9.99, containing another two new stages (Rally Sweden – Umea and Umea Sprint, EKO Acropolis Rally Greece – Harvati) and more unannounced cars.
All three optional DLC packs can be picked up for a near-25% discount with the ‘EA SPORTS WRC 24 Season Expansion Bundle’, priced at £24.99 / $29.99 / €29.99.
All of the optional DLC, plus the base game (for those who do not already own it), will be repackaged as a digital-only release for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S called EA SPORTS WRC 24.
This standalone release will retail for £44.99 / $49.99 / €49.99.
New stages – verdict
Rally Poland and Rally Latvia join WRC’s lineup of stages through the ‘EA SPORTS WRC 24 Locations & Cars Content Pack’, bringing two more high-speed gravel environments to the game.
The initial worry about this was that the incumbent Estonian and Finnish stages could be too similar to the fresh tests. However, you can’t have too much of a good thing in my opinion and the Polish and Latvian stages are full of high-speed, six-left, don’t cut goodness.
The topography of the two new environments is very similar, mostly consisting of light and medium gravel, with much fewer blind crests than Finland’s selection of tricky tests. And the speed – oh boy, the speed – you can take through most of them showcases WRC at its best.
For those who love to hot lap, I recommend the 4.9 Km Kalvene stage in Latvia, which can be completed in under two minutes. It’s a near-full-throttle blast through the South Kurzeme countryside and epitomises the new stages perfectly: it’s fast.
There’s nothing particularly new or interesting about the scenery on display, though, as both locations are quite reminiscent of Estonia, but are exciting and fairly forgiving to drive. Shader caching is still an issue in replay mode but it isn’t as bad as my first encounter with the game last year.
EA SPORTS WRC’s new cars
Toyota GR Yaris Rally2
For many players the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 will be the stand-out car of the ‘WRC 24 Locations & Cars Content Pack’, seeing as it’s an entirely new car model. This also represents the first time the car has been featured in a video game.
It stands apart from its Rally2/R5 competitors thanks to its three-cylinder engine (the others have four-pots), and its unique exhaust note makes it the best-sounding car in-game, although the off-throttle anti-lag sounds are quite grating.
The Yaris feels very similar to its class rivals but looks incredible, especially in asphalt spec. Its squat, beefy exterior really makes it pop in screenshots – it looks muscular and compact, like a tin of corned beef on wheels (I’m slightly biased, however, given I own a road-going GR Yaris).
Ford Fiesta Rally3 Evo
The Ford Fiesta Rally3 Evo is a different kind of three-cylinder rally car though and is used as a platform for the Junior World Rally Championship, a series for up-and-coming rally drivers. Therefore, the Fiesta is predictable to drive with a strong emphasis on carrying momentum.
The second version of the Fiesta Rally3 is built by M-Sport Poland using a 1500cc Ford EcoBoost engine, producing around 235 bhp. Its development was prompted by the appearance of the new Renault Clio Rally3, prompting some fierce JWRC competition.
Unsurprisingly, the Fiesta is a safe and stable platform to tackle WRC’s gravel and asphalt stages and is probably the ideal starter car to help get to grips with the game’s idiosyncratic handling model (speaking as someone fresh from some intensive Richard Burns Rally sessions).
2024 Rally1 cars
Now it’s time for the top class of car. The main course. Rally1 hybrids.
On the face of it, the 2024 Rally1 cars are not actually ‘new’. EA lists this DLC as having ‘five new cars’, but the Rally2 Yaris and the Rally3 Fiesta are truly the only two new cars in my eyes, as the three Rally1 cars only feature tenuous aero adjustments.
I snapped images of both the 2023 and 2024 Rally1 contenders and couldn’t spot many differences – although the Ford Puma does have a noticeably different rear wing, as it should.
In terms of other details, the cars don’t carry the snorkels allowed for Safari Rally Kenya, which is disappointing but game audio has been overhauled. The Ford Puma has apparently had all-new sounds recorded, while the Toyota GR Yaris and Hyundai i20 enjoy cockpit audio refreshes.
The changes are quite subtle but definitely an improvement. However, we’d have liked the external sounds to be a little more brutal on the eardrums, they just sound a little tinny and lifeless right now (although far superior to Kylotonn’s WRC franchise audio).
In total, there are 52 new livery designs in this update across the WRC, WRC 2 and JWRC classes but if you’re looking for Rally1 paint schemes for Mārtiņš Sesks or Sami Pajari you’re fresh out of luck.
This seems especially odd as Sesks has emerged as something of a Latvian national hero in recent months, so not having the option of driving his car on his home country’s stages seems slightly baffling.
The 2024 liveries don’t feature in their own sub-menu when in time trial mode either, instead being lumped in with the 2023 cars, although there are separate championship menus for them.
2024 WRC points rules
In a move that will please as many rally nerds as it infuriates, 2024’s bizarre points-scoring system has made it into the new update.
I could write an essay on the intricacies of this, but suffice it to say drivers who retire from a rally weekend on the first day can still score up to 13 points. It’s confusing for casual fans but you have to applaud the developers for including it.
Time control
WRC’s new additions raise a debate over the pluses and minuses of releasing a new game every year versus a yearly expansion DLC.
WRC is perhaps ideally suited to DLC expansions given the stability of the WRC’s regulations and its relative lack of manufacturers. Most major sports titles enjoy yearly instalments but these generally offer comprehensive roster updates, almost justifying the annual expense (almost).
EA and Codemasters’ F1 series is one such game, with two teams sharing development duties concurrently. This means while one team was working on F1 23 – replete with its ‘Braking Point’ story mode – another was grafting away on F1 24 (sans Braking Point).
The ends must justify the means, however, and F1 games will generate enough sales to make this approach worthwhile. Would a WRC game do the same? Thanks to its smaller fanbase, we think not, so in our mind yearly expansion DLC pack at this point makes much more sense.
Maybe it could be a new game bi-annually, with DLC in between? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Overall, the new stages are fantastic fun and the new Yaris adds some intrigue to the Rally2/R5 lineup. Although the 2024 Rally1 cars aren’t strictly brand new, it’s nice to have their new liveries in-game. Is it worth £17.99? If you’re a rally nerd like most of the Traxion team then yes. If not, it’s a harder sell.
Most of all it’s great to see EA and Codemasters are still working on bringing fresh content to EA SPORTS WRC, and if the forthcoming Hard Chargers and Le Maestros Content Packs can deliver similar rally thrills they’ll be onto a winner.
EA SPORTS WRC 24 Locations & Cars Content Pack release date and price
The ‘EA SPORTS WRC 24 Locations & Cars Content Pack’ will be available for PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 on the 8th of October 2024 for £17.99 / $19.99 / €19.99.
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