EA SPORTS WRC update adds approachable options

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While not taking away from the hardcore options that exist within EA SPORTS WRC, the rally sim has been updated with further options for newcomers.

Chief of which is the option to turn off mechanical damage. With the new ‘visual only’ setting, your car will still crumple should you smash into one of the many trees, but it won’t slow you down henceforth.

This is under a re-named ‘damage difficulty’ setting.

For those booting the rally title for the first time, there are revised difficulty presets, plus the play experience menu now describes which assists are enabled for each. If you select the ‘experienced’ option (the other two are beginner and pro) you will then be taken to the Rally School.

Several small tweaks have also been implemented, such as the removal of known corner-cutting exploits, changes to the noises made when driving through water or impacting foliage and 27 new decades have been added to the livery editor.

The full changelog for PC, PlayStation and Xbox are below, and the patch will be released on 5th December 2024, when the platform is also added to EA Play and selected Game Pass tiers.

EA SPORTS WRC Version 2.1.6 changelog

Audio

• Made improvements to audio effects when the player’s car collides with bodies of water, and other soft-edge objects (foliage etc.).

Livery Editor 

• Added 27 new decals to the Livery Editor. These primarily consist of motorsport safety-themed icons, such as fire extinguisher marks, electricity cut-off indicators, tow hook locations and more. 

Locations 

• Japan – Lake Mikawa – Fixed an issue in which some textures appeared distorted during location reveal scenes.
• Pacifico – Talao – Addressed a number of corner-cutting exploits on the “Abai” section of this stage.
• Pacifico – Talanghilirair – Addressed a number of corner-cutting exploits on the “Abai” section of this stage.
• Pacifico – Sungai Kunit – Addressed a number of corner-cutting exploits on the “Abai” section of this stage.
• Pacifico – Sangir Balai Janggo – Addressed a number of corner-cutting exploits on the “Abai” section of this stage.
• Pacifico – Abai – Addressed a number of corner-cutting exploits.
• Pacifico – Moearaikoer – Addressed a number of corner-cutting exploits.

Moments 

• Japanese Airlines – Fixed an issue in which this Moment could not be completed.

Options & Settings

• Added a new Damage Difficulty option: “Visual Only”. This setting allows mechanical damage to be disabled across Career, Championship, Clubs, Quick Play Solo and Quick Play Multiplayer. Tyres will not receive punctures while this is enabled (Tyre Wear remains active). Terminal Damage will not occur from crashes or entering unrecoverable zones on stages (these now reset the car to the road). No changes have been made to the Normal and Hardcore Damage Difficulty options.
• Added Assists, AI and Damage Difficulty notes to Play Experience. Play Experience is the difficulty preset menu presented to new players when they play for the very first time.
• Adjusted the preset Assists applied when new players select Experienced in the Play Experience menu. Assists can be changed/customised at any time.
• New players who select Experienced in the Play Experience menu will now be automatically taken to Rally School. This functionality previously existed when new players selected Beginner (and also remains active there).
• Renamed the “Hardcore Damage” setting to “Damage Difficulty”.

Quick Play

• Fixed an issue with Quick Play Multiplayer in which Xbox players could not receive invites from players on other platforms. 

VR Beta

• Fixed an issue in which ambient audio was not playing during replays and other scenes.

Miscellaneous

• Made a small number of minor bug fixes and improvements across the game