The five best rally games in 2025

Rallying is probably the perfect motorsport discipline fodder for video games. The action is fast, frantic and full of spectacular action, which makes it rather galling that there are comparatively so few quality rally titles available today.

However, there are still a few modern rally games worth playing now, and I’ve attempted to rank the best ones below. 

As ever, please tell us your favourites in the comments below!

Honourable mentions

BeamNG.drive flits between driving disciplines willy-nilly, but it’s currently focusing on rally content. The game now has an audible co-driver, pacenotes and bespoke rally stages, with plans to enhance it further. 

However, BeamNG’s driving physics and steering wheel force feedback need a bit more work, with the game still suffering from poor optimisation. It’s one for the future, perhaps.

Similarly, Assetto Corsa has rallying thanks to modders. While the asphalt driving experience is largely solid, things fall apart when you head off-road, with vehicles tending toward disappointing understeer. Thanks to a passionate modding community, though, this will surely improve.

Weirdly, Kylotonn’s WRC 7 remains a popular rally title, garnering more concurrent players on Steam than both WRC Generations and EA SPORTS WRC, which is quite odd. It’s not a stand-out rally game by any means, but it enjoys hefty discounts and features the awesome ‘WRC Plus’ cars. That isn’t necessarily a recommendation to buy, however…

5. WRC Generations

Released in November 2022, Kylotonn’s final officially licensed WRC game is probably its most complete yet. Simulating the new-for-2021 hybrid Rally1 cars was no mean feat, but the Parisian studio managed it well.

WRC Generations comes with a deep career mode, 144 realistic stages (including superspecials!) and a range of historic rally cars from WRC’s diverse and storied history.

Although its audio design is half-baked, and the graphics are a generation behind other racing games (pun intended), Generations is still an authentic WRC experience that will keep rally fans amused for months, despite its divisive physics.

4. art of rally

Funselektor’s stylised take on rallying may seem unusual, but art of rally manages to capture the majesty of the WRC’s Group B era while remaining lots of fun to play.

Using facsimiles of some of the sport’s most incredible cars, art of rally plunges players into beautifully rendered environments via a top-down viewpoint. Players intuitively drift cars on mud, snow and asphalt, all the while accompanied by a pulsating synth soundtrack.

The attention to detail on the cars, some of which are little-known curios familiar only to rallying aficionados, is impressive, with bobble-hatters sure to appreciate neat little touches like the trackside crowds stepping back quickly from an approaching car. Classic Group B fare, then.

3. EA SPORTS WRC

Although EA SPORTS WRC has its foibles (and is rightly criticised for them), underneath patchy graphical performance lies a comprehensive official WRC experience. 

WRC contains all the cars and locations from the 2023 and 2024 championships, including WRC2, WRC3 and WRC4 categories. There’s the interesting Moments mode, which presents historic scenarios for passionate rally fans to engage with, plus a long, if muddled, career mode to play through.

The game has believable but forgiving physics and properly long stages, with some surpassing 20-30 Km in length. A move away from Codemasters’ proprietary Ego game engine facilitated the longer stages, but the switch to Unreal Engine has created a litany of graphical problems, including shader caching and messy textures, although some of this has been mitigated by subsequent patches. 

Still, WRC appeals to hardcore rally fans thanks to its lineup of incredible rally machines, with well-priced DLC providing access to awesome cars like the Formula 2 Citroën Xsara and Toyota GR Yaris Rally2.

2. DiRT Rally 2.0

EA SPORTS WRC’s predecessor is widely seen as a better game by many fans. Not only do the graphics look superior in DiRT Rally 2.0, but it also runs much better, with silky-smooth framerates enhancing the fast-paced action and helping create an engrossing VR experience.

DR 2.0 also has officially licensed World Rallycross Championship content, featuring most of the full-time drivers and some of the tracks from the 2018 series, featuring superstars like Sebastien Loeb and Johan Kristofferson.

The rallycross races are fantastic, but rallying is the main focus of the game, and there are plenty of environments to tackle in a huge selection of cars, albeit minus a current WRC licence.

Although DR 2.0’s physics feel very similar to WRC’s, many prefer the older game’s handling model, which again provides a satisfying feeling but one aimed more at casual rally fans.

Thanks to frequent sales, DR 2.0 and its masses of DLC can be picked up extremely cheaply too, making it an excellent rally platform despite being six years old.

1. Richard Burns Rally

Well, of course I’d rank Richard Burns Rally as the best rally game you can play today, but there’s one caveat: it’s not the original game.

No, the RBR I believe is the finest rally title today is the modified version made popular by the Rallysimfans team. This all-encompassing mod, available for free from the RSF website, transforms Warthog’s 21-year-old rally sim into an enthusiast’s dream.

Thanks in large part to the work of enigmatic modder WorkerBee, RBR’s physics have been refined to an incredible degree and the game now boasts vehicle dynamics unmatched by any other rally title.

The game’s recalcitrant sounds and graphics have also been reworked over the years, with FMOD audio enhancing cars’ exhaust notes (Colin McRae’s Group A Subaru Impreza sounds delicious, for example). 

Helpful utilities like a pacenote editor, as well as the addition of real-world co-drivers and alternative pacenote systems, far surpass anything RBR’s competitors have today, too. And it’s VR-ready – what more do you need?!

There are also hundreds of modded stages and cars to tackle, many of which wouldn’t look out of place in EA SPORTS WRC, with real-world stages like Gabiria-Legazpi, Biskupice and El Condor replicated in astonishing detail.

Throwing a car into one of Chirdonhead’s high-speed compressions is one of sim racing’s greatest feelings, and it can only be experienced in one of the genre’s greatest proponents: Richard Burns Rally.

What would you consider to be the best rally games you can play today? Let us know in the comments below.