Codemasters is currently the biggest automotive simulation video game developer as it has its own franchises GRID and DiRT. DiRT includes both DiRT Rally which is the more hardcore simulation franchise while Dirt is a more arcade approach on the modern rally and includes various sub-divisions of the rally as well such as Rallycross, Buggies, and trucks. Codemasters also recently revealed DiRT 5 which will release later this year. However, it appears like this was not enough for Codemasters as the company now owns the license to its biggest competitor WRC as well.
Codemasters used to develop WRC games well back in 2002 when Colin McRae Rally 3 was released. Later, the franchise went to Evolution Studios and then to Milestone. Recently, Kylotonn had been working on the franchise for quite some time and they did a fantastic job at making the game better year after year. The latest release in the franchise was WRC 8 and it was released last year. In our review, we termed it the best rally game in the franchise ever. The game was so successful that the developer started its work on WRC 9 as well which is slated to release sometime later this year.
However, it seems like Kylotonn’s run is now also over as the WRC franchise is now back in Codemasters’ hands. However, with the developer busy in the development of DiRT 5, we can see that the next WRC game is going to take some time. It might not even be called WRC because earlier, Codemasters used to release the game under the name Colin McRae Rally. The license will remain with them for five years starting from 2023 and will run all the way until 2027. During this time, the developer will develop and release WRC games for console, PC, and mobile devices.
Additional details are not known at this point but even if their license is starting from 2023, we are not yet sure if Kylotonn will further work on a WRC title after releasing WRC 9 later this year. WRC 8 was a brilliant game in the franchise and it currently featuring a massive Esports following as well as its events were taking place during real-life WRC events. The last year’s WRC eSports event was a huge success.
