At the time of writing, over the past two days the official social media accounts of the WRC games have been posting cryptic little teaser videos.
The first, from the 6th April, read: “Our adventure started with WRC 5, now we are preparing the nest chapter! #BePartOfHistory”. The caption went alongside a short video that sees the WRC 5 logo replaced by WRC 6.
One day later, and another teaser post. This time the video depicts the WRC 6 logo being replaced by a WRC 7 image alongside the caption “What do you want to see in the next chapter of the WRC games?”
WRC 5 was released back in 2015 and was the first WRC game developed by Parisien developer Kylotonn after the keys were handed over from Milestone. If we extrapolate this teaser pattern and assume that each day for the foreseeable future there will be another teaser then the current game, WRC 9, will be shown on Friday 9th April 2021.
Will we then see WRC 10 – or whatever the game ends up being entitled – revealed this Friday? Or maybe it will be the following Monday, the 12th?
Either way, this smells like an imminent reveal to us.
WRC 9 was first announced on the 20th March 2020 ahead of a release in September, a six-month run-up. As a comparison, MotoGP 21 was revealed on the 18th February ahead of a 22nd April release, only a six-week gap. This does seem to be way ahead of the release of the next WRC game, provided of course, that the next instalment stays on a similar release schedule.
Another element that seems slightly odd about this social media build-up campaign is that WRC 9 launched on the Nintendo Switch just four weeks ago.
We’re big fans of WRC 9 as the vehicle handling took massive steps forward over its predecessors, finally taking the fight to DiRT Rally 2.0. This year’s real-life WRC season saw the addition of the new Arctic Rally Finland in place of Sweden and next up sees another new event in the form of Croatia. Just as recently as last month, the proposed round in Chile has been replaced by the Acropolis Rally Greece.
Whether or not these new rallies make the next game with such a tight turnaround remains to be seen, but either way, we’re keeping our eyes peeled over the next few days and bracing for an announcement of some description.
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