EA Sports WRC review: Rally racing done right

EA Sports WRC is essentially the rally racing sim that I never knew I was missing in my life. As an avid racing game enthusiast, who recently took a break from Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo 7 to focus on games like Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2, I was genuinely surprised how quickly WRC grabbed my attention and took me back to my racing setup.

Despite my preference for track racing, I'm someone who has always liked the idea of offroad racing. Although it isn't something I regularly look forward to in my racing games, rally and offroad racing have always fascinated me. WRC felt like the perfect excuse for me to give offroad simulation racing a shot, and it's something I'm really glad I did.

WRC is basically the antithesis of what I usually prefer in my racing games, yet I gravitated towards it way more than any other in the last few years. From its stellar graphical presentation to the excellent driving physics, developer Codemasters has nailed the feeling of offroad racing, while also making the experience fun and engaging for newcomers like me.

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Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed my time playing WRC, even with my lack of interest in the sport of offroad and rally racing. However, much like any other racing game out there, WRC isn't entirely perfect. In fact, there are some glaring flaws that can get in the way of you enjoying the racing and moment-to-moment gameplay in the title.

EA Sports WRC: An excellent rally racing simulator, albeit with a few technical shortcomings

The perfect rally racing sim (Image via EA Sports)

The rally racing simulation genre is quite niche to begin with, especially when contrasted against the arcade/simulation racers. However, since the last few years, there has been a steady rise in interest towards offroad racing, especially in the arcade racing scene. And one of the biggest players in the offroad racing genre has been Dirt Rally games.

I remember playing the original Dirt Rally a few years back, and despite being super impressed by the game's presentation and physics, I never felt compelled enough to play it past the first few races. Offroad racing, as I mentioned, wasn't something that I was very fond of; that is, until I got my hands on Codemasters' latest creation.

WRC really changed the way I look at racing games now. It might not have left as big an impression as something like Bloodborne and the broader "souls-like" genre, for instance, but it did accomplish something that I never thought any racing game would. It made me fall in love with offroad racing, despite my clear bias towards asphalt.

Gameplay and progression

There are a host of different iconic offroad tracks to race on (Image via EA Sports)

In terms of gameplay, WRC is essentially an upgraded version of Codemasters' Dirt Rally 2.0, with roughly identical game modes and progression system. However, the standout feature that sets WRC apart from the Dirt Rally games is the amount of improvements that Codemasters has made to the physics and handling system.

The handling model takes a lot of inspiration from its most recent titles like Dirt 5 and even F1 23. Unlike the Dirt Rally games, driving here feels incredibly well-tuned with less understeer and a proper sense of the weight of the vehicle, something that I feel was lacking in the developer's previous rally-inspired games.

Although I wouldn't necessarily call the driving here arcadey, per se, it does feel quite similar to games like Forza Horizon or even Need for Speed for that matter. One of my biggest gripes with Rally games, in general, is their driving physics, and the tendency to make cars oversteer at turns. However, with WRC, I never experienced such an issue.

Now talking about the game's progression system, WRC borrows a whole lot from the general EA Sports titles in that regard. You have a dedicated single-player mode with multiple seasonal events to go through, as well as a host of co-op and multiplayer game modes. Most of my time playing the game was spent in the single-player stuff.

WRC features a vast array of offroad vehicles to choose from (Image via EA Sports)

However, I did try out a couple of multiplayer races and found no issues with the online connectivity or server disconnects. I should mention that the progression between single-player and multiplayer is shared, with a shared garage. Lastly, the game also features a robust vehicle customization system, akin to Codemasters' previous titles.

Presentation and audio

Built using Unreal Engine 4, WRC is easily one of the most visually impressive rally racing games to date. While the graphics of Codemasters' latest title isn't on par with something like Forza Horizon 5 or Need for Speed Unbound, it is still quite impressive, especially when played on PC with the settings all cranked up to their absolute limits.

The breathtaking visuals (Image via EA Sports)

The car models in particular are the highlights here, with amazing texture work and lighting. The tracks also look quite good under certain weather conditions, but they still have that "last-gen" sheen to them, which especially rears its head during replays. Fortunately, it's very unlikely for you to notice the somewhat dated texture work when going at over 100mph.

Lastly, let's talk about the game's sound design for a bit. In most of Codemasters' previous titles (barring the F1 games), car sounds are a hit-or-miss situation more often than not. I remember Grid Autosport having horrendous car audio, especially for V8 and twin-turbo vehicles. Grid 2 improved a lot in that regard, but still, it wasn't perfect.

I distinctly remember Dirt Rally having the same issue with car sounds, which felt genuinely off-putting for a racing game that aims to mirror a real-life autosport. Codemasters did a ton of improvement in terms of vehicular audio with its previous title, F1 23, and it seems that improvement has carried over to the recent rally racing simulator.

The handling model in WRC feels like a mix between Dirt Rally and F1 23 (Image via EA Sports)

I'm honestly surprised at how good each of the different cars and engines sound in WRC. There is also a slight variation in engine sounds depending on the amount and kind of upgrades you add to your vehicle. While the car audio isn't something that surpasses the likes of Forza or Gran Turismo games, it sure is a close match, and that's genuinely impressive.

Few shortcomings

While I had a pretty great time playing WRC for more than 20 hours on PC, the game could work with a couple of performance improvement updates. I played Codemasters' latest title on my main PC with a Ryzen 5 5600, RX6600 (SAM/ re-bar enabled), and 16GB RAM, with the game being installed on my Gen3 M.2 drive.

Despite some glaring technical issues on PC, WRC still shines as one of the most visually impressive racing games out there (Image via EA Sports)

However, despite surpassing the game's recommended requirements, I struggled to maintain a steady framerate at 1080p Max settings. I had to swallow my pride and turn the settings to a combination of Medium and High to get stable framerates, while also locking it down to 60fps via RTSS. And honestly, this isn't ideal.

While WRC isn't on the same level as something like Forspoken, The Last of Us Part 1, Lords of the Fallen, or Star Wars Jedi Survivor, in terms of PC performance, it still has plenty of optimization-related issues on the platform. And in a fast-paced racing game, where every single frame counts, having such unstable performance is unacceptable.

I also faced multiple hard crashes during my time with the game. There is also a potential memory leak issue with WRC, where playing it for upwards of two hours degrades performance. Fortunately, all of these issues can be ironed out with updates, and I hope Codemasters can fix these technical hiccups holding back an otherwise excellent rally racer.

In conclusion

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WRC is easily one of the best rally racing games out there, one that sits comfortably amongst some of the most revered racing sims of this new generation. A few technical issues on PC aside, Codemasters has crafted an excellent offroad racing experience, complete with a robust handling model and a host of game modes to choose from.

While it can look a bit dated due to its use of Unreal Engine 4, it does deliver some really impressive visuals under certain lighting conditions, and on powerful enough hardware, i.e., PC, PS5, or Xbox Series X. If you're looking for a good rally racing game to invest your time in, you just can't go wrong with EA Sports' WRC.