Dirt Rally could yet race onto consoles; WRC licence remains possible

A version of Codemasters’ Dirt Rally may be released on consoles, although it might differ from the experience currently available on PC.

The game did the rare trick of being announced and released on the same day last month, and is currently available via Steam Early Access.

I want really to be in the hands of as many players as possible and I’m well aware that the PC market is only a section of the wider gaming market, so ultimately I want players who invested in consoles rather than PCs to be able to experience this game first hand,” lead designer Paul Coleman told Red Bull Games.

Early access is the pathway or road that we’re using but I think that once we get to the end of that road we can confidently be packaging and curating a console experience from the content and also from the learnings that we had on PC for our console audience… I think it’s something that we should be actively looking to do.”

Coleman also touched upon the game’s lack of official WRC licence. Although the door to collaboration remains open, the developer argues that licenses can at times be a burden – such as when Codemasters’ F1 games have to remain linked to a particular season.

We wanted to show a much broader spectrum of rally and the wider rally sport then perhaps the WRC would offer,” he added. We did have conversations with WRC along the way.

I definitely don’t want to say the door is closed to the WRC, but right now I think we’re doing the right thing with early access, and representing a broader spectrum than perhaps the WRC would let us do.”