"We’re really proud of what we achieved with it": EA Sports WRC's Creative Director on their latest racing title, inspirations, and more (Exclusive)

Developed by Codemasters, EA Sports WRC is easily one of the best rally racing games I've played in a long, long time (perhaps even surpassing the studio's own DiRT Rally games). While I don't usually gravitate towards offroad over traditional track-based racing, WRC made me rethink things while also delivering everything I needed from a no-fuss racing-simulator experience.

While playing their latest title, I was constantly reminded of how hard Codemasters have worked towards honing their craft while also sticking close to their core principles of creating fun, engaging, and energetic racing experiences.

Recently, we had a chance to connect with EA Sports WRC's Creative Director, Ross Gowing, and get some insight on various aspects of the game, as well as the IP's future.

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EA Sports WRC's Creative Director Ross Gowing shares his views on working on a new IP, inspirations, post-launch support, and more

Q. How different is the process of working with a licensed IP like WRC or F1 compared to your proprietary franchises like GRID or Dirt?

Ross: Whilst we had complete flexibility on the DiRT Rally franchise to do whatever we saw fit, we always felt that combining the quality of our studio’s rally games with the WRC license and being able to represent the pinnacle of the sport would be a perfect match.

Working with WRC has given us access to an incredible amount of research and reference material and access to all the teams, which has helped us push our authentic approach to rally even further and build a really incredible game.

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Q. As someone who really adores the visual presentation of the latest GRID and F1 games, I’d admit it was a bit jarring to see your latest game not using the Ego Engine. Is the switch to Unreal Engine a permanent thing, or can fans expect more games built using your proprietary engine in the future? Also, sticking with the topic of game engines, is there any particular reason why Unreal Engine was selected over Ego Engine 4.0?

Ross: We’d got to a point where the EGO engine wasn’t going to be able to support where we wanted to go with WRC, and that was primarily much longer stages than we’d ever done before.

The Unreal Engine has enabled us to lift all the handling and physics from the DiRT Rally series, put it in the new engine, and then set to work on overhauling the way cars behave on asphalt and further refining the great feeling we already had on gravel.

After that, we’ve been able to use all the tools and workflow of Unreal to build those epic stages at a quality level higher than we were ever able to do previously.

From my conversations with some of the F1 leadership team, I know they’re dedicated to pushing their version of the EGO engine further and further, but apart from that, I don’t have any info about plans for other titles outside of WRC. Sorry!

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Q. Besides the obvious Dirt Rally games, what other titles did the team use as inspiration for WRC?

Ross: The Dirt Rally series and how we could push the ethos of those games even further and wrap them up in the world of WRC was obviously the first place we started thinking.

In terms of other influences, we did a lot of careful research into our stablemate titles in the EA SPORTS portfolio and took a great deal of learnings about what makes a modern sports game, especially in terms of helping new players get started with the game and what their short-, medium-, and long-term goals and journeys should be.

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Q. In my time playing the game, I really liked the customization system, in particular, the Builder Mode. Can we expect to see the Builder Mode or something similar to it in future Codemasters games?

Ross: It’s great to hear that you have enjoyed Builder so much - it’s something that so many teams across the studio worked incredibly hard on, and we’re really proud of what we achieved with it.

We really wanted to give players something that they could create and own in the game, a bit like an extension of their own character, along with them being able to tailor their vehicles to drive exactly how they want them to.

I don’t have any visibility on whether teams working on other games have been inspired by it, but for now, our WRC team is enjoying having brought a long-standing dream to life and seeing how much fun players are having with it.

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Q. Apart from the promised VR mode coming to PC, is there anything else planned for WRC’s future, new cars or tracks perhaps?

Ross: We will share more news about this soon, but we’ll be adding Central Europe Rally as a new location and our Esports mode as free updates. And then, we have our future VIP Rally Pass Seasons as paid content for players to be able to earn and unlock additional cosmetic items.

We’ll also be continuing to add to our Moments mode every day, so fans will be able to experience the most iconic moments from the 50-year history of the FIA World Rally Championship and always have a fresh challenge to take on!

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Q. Lastly, is WRC going to replace Dirt Rally games (I hope not), or is it going to stay as its own thing, separate from Codemasters’ original IPs?

Ross: For the time being, our team’s focus is on WRC. We have a five-year license with them, and we are excited about what we can achieve and the gameplay experiences we can bring to rally fans all over the world.

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While I personally wasn't a big fan of the DiRT Rally games, I did adore Codemasters' GRID titles. They were some of the very first games to introduce me to the racing genre. Seeing how the studio eventually grew its portfolio from small-scale track racers to big-budget AAA racing simulators was genuinely gratifying.

Codemasters' latest title genuinely made me all the more excited for what the developer has in store for racing fans in the near future.