Good news DIRT 5 owners, the latest game update – entitled ‘2.00’ – is now live and brings with it some seasonal content, steering wheel support and vital bug fixes.
The free update is available to all PC, PS4 and PS5 owners now (20th December 2020) and comes to Xbox One and Xbox Series players a couple of days later on 22nd December 2020.
Let’s start with the exciting elements, and by that we mean shiny new things.
The Snow Limits Free Content Pack includes the ability to create Playgrounds levels with the weather set to snow alongside a suite of new items including ice loops, yuletide wreath checkpoints, start/finish gates made from gingerbread and baubles for the Smash Attack mode. Meanwhile, if you are creating a Gymkhana level, you now have access to items such as Nutcracker figurines, ice sculptures for drift gates, on-track presents to smash into destructible snowmen.
During the winter period, expect the snow theme to be popular amongst the community-created events found within the game. Speaking of which, John has been having fun recently by trying to set quickest times on some of the highest-rated levels.
But, what about additional career events and new cars?
Well, there aren’t any new cars in this update sadly nor an expanded career, but there is a new seasonal livery for both the Ford Mustang GT4, resplendent in a green and red design, and the Porsche Cayenne Transsyberia, which sports a fresh icy look.
These are alongside five new lanyards, stickers and car backgrounds to customise your profile with and a new winter-themed Sprint race event playable in Arcade, Time Trial or online at the Roosevelt Island location.
If this all sounds like some frivolous cosmetic items, then that’s because it largely is. But hey, it’s free and ideal for this time of year.
Perhaps on a more pertinent note is the steering wheel support. While DIRT 5 clearly doesn’t take itself too seriously, there is at times a lack of precision to the vehicle handling when trying to navigate a tricky Playgrounds creation or during the frenetic online modes.
The ability to use steering wheels should help remedy these niggles. On PS4 and PS5, you can now use current Logitech and Thrustmaster wheels, with Fanatec support arriving in a future update. For those on Xbox and PC, current Logitech and Thrustmaster wheels are also supported, alongside the Fanatec CSL Elite Wheel, ClubSport Wheel Base v2/2.5 and Podium Wheel Base DD1/2.
Finally, in what is a hefty revision, Update 2.00 adds visual enhancements when played on Xbox Series X in 120hz mode, fixes PS5 Trophy bugs, refines PC crashes and start-up issues and crucially updates the friend lobby size from just four to eight. Lovely.
What remains to be seen is how well DIRT 5 will be supported over the next year and if a community sticks around to keep the Playgrounds and online modes active. For now, though, this update arguably adds some features that should have been there upon release and throws in some timely cosmetics.
