The DAKAR. One of the, if not the, toughest motorsport event there is. Nearly two weeks of flat-out competition in cars, trucks, quads and even on motorcycles. The diverse range of vehicles and terrain must be an absolute nightmare to develop a game for, but that’s exactly what Bigmoon Entertainment is trying to do, again.
DAKAR 18 was the first game in generations to try and simulate the off-road adventure, but while the idea was a great one, the implementation was sadly lacking. Severe frame rate drops, weird bugs where your tyres would go missing, bizarre bike handling, odd AI behaviour and a frustrating progression system all worked against the game.
But, with DAKAR 21 we know that Bigmoon was recently purchased by Saber Interactive, who also control the MudRunner and SnowRunner games. We also know from a Facebook post by the developers that the next game – due later this year for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series – features “Physics! Physics! Physics!”. That’s a direct quote.
Based upon this, we would take a guess that DAKAR 21 is using the terrain technology from the ‘Runner’ games to better replicate sand dunes. Hopefully.
In real life, the DAKAR event is now held in Saudi Arabia, whereas back in 2018 it was across a more diverse landscape in multiple South American locations, so at least for the new game, the development team can focus on a single environment.
One of the new images features the Toyota Hilux of multiple event winner – and Olympic medallist in Skeet – Nasser Al-Attiyah flying through the dunes. A second image, posted just two days later, is marked as alpha footage, with the Century Buggy of Mathieu Serradori from the 2020 event. Both look great, but this is still from the early stages of development and there is no gameplay footage as of yet.
We hope we can find out more about the game soon, as there is potential for an interesting racing game that offers something different here. What do you think? Are you looking forward to a new DAKAR game? If so, let us know in the comments.
