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WRC 10 Review (PC): The Best Game in the World Rally Championship Series

This has been an unusually prolific year for racing games fans, and the last few months of 2021 shape up to be even greater. Hot Wheels Unleashed is supposed to arrive later this month, and Microsoft’s Forza Horizon 5 drops in early November.
WRC 10 keyart 24 photos
Photo: NACON
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Until then, we’ll be one of the best rally games out there for a spin: WRC 10. The sequel to last year’s WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship, a game that set a higher bar for the genre, WRC 10 refines and hones some of the gameplay mechanics the previous titled offer while bringing some new content into the mix.

The meaty part of the game, Career mode, lets you choose where to start your adventure into the rally world. If you’re a beginner or just want the full experience, you’ll have to join the Junior WRC and jump behind the wheel of a Ford Fiesta Rally4. Since this is a beginner’s stage, you’ll have an unlimited number of tryouts.

While competing in Junior WRC, your main objectives are to complete five major rallies: Croatia, Portugal, Estonia, Chile, and Rally RACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada. But before you get to tackle your first official rally, you’re going to go through a couple of Training sessions just to get the feel of the car.

Physics are a step up from WRC 9, especially on tarmac, and so is the handling of the cars. Of course, there’s room for improvements like, for instance, better implementation of H-shifter physics. Also, depending on what view you’re using, you might or might not have a pleasant experience. If you’re going for full immersion and choose the cockpit view, you’ll have very limited adjustment options for the FoV (field of view).

WRC 10 screenshot
Photo: autoevolution
Although driving is what you’ll do most of the time in WRC 10, if you really want to see what it means to be part of a rally team, there are a couple of additional things that you’ll have to oversee.

In the R&D section, you’ll be spending points awarded to you after each event to improve your team members further. You can also fire and hire new people that will take care of your car. Finally, if you’re just interested in competing in rally, you can go for Season mode, which removes all the team management aspects.

New events will pop up on your calendar, and you can choose to ignore them if they’re optional. Sometimes you’re given the option to choose between three different events or, something new for the WRC series, you can race in anniversary events.

WRC 10 adds a so-called 50th Anniversary mode, a celebration of the motorsport’s 50-year history. This is where you can drive classic cars like the Alpine A110 Berlinette, Audi quattro Sport, Lancia Stratos, Lancia Delta Integrale, Toyota Celica, and many more. You can even take the Subaru Impreza WRC and Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V for a spin (they’re available separately as free DLC). There will be a total of 19 events that shaped the history of the World Rally Championship, which you can relive throughout WRC 10. Unfortunately, you can't just jump in the 50th Anniversary mode, you’ll have to unlock these events in the Career mode first.

Veterans of the genre will be allowed to the move directly into WRC3 competition, but I’d strongly recommend fiddling with the assist settings to find the best options that fit your drive style.

WRC 10 screenshot
Photo: autoevolution

Conclusion

Just like the predecessor, WRC 10 offers an interesting combination of arcade and simulation mechanics, but it’s the better game due to improved handling and physics. The historic events and classic cars are a nice addition to the series too, but there’s not much else in terms of content that WRC 9 didn’t have.

When it comes to visuals, WRC 10 looks good enough for a game that wants to be one of the best rally games out there. Once again, though, improvements over the previous title are minimal, so don’t go in expecting a huge graphics upgrade.

WRC 10 is clearly the best game in the series. It features an in-depth Career mode with lots of events and suitable for both newcomers and veterans of the franchise. There’s quite a lot of content included, and all presented rather nicely. However, there are few reasons WRC 9 players will want to upgrade to WRC 10, at least not right now.

Rating: 85/100
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Editor's note: Review based on a copy of the game provided by the publisher.

 

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