EA Sports WRC

EA Sports WRC, also known as EA WRC or simply WRC, is a racing video game developed by Codemasters and published by EA Sports. It holds the official licence (acquired by Codemasters in 2020) of the World Rally Championship and powered by Unreal Engine 4. It is the first Codemasters rally game to have the official WRC licence since Colin McRae Rally 3 in 2002. The game was released for Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 3 November 2023.

Gameplay
EA Sports WRC features 78 rally cars. 10 Groups Rally cars are from the World Rally Championship, including three Rally1 vehicles such as the Puma of M-Sport, the i20 N of Hyundai and the GR Yaris of Toyota and seven other cars from the support categories — the World Rally Championship-2 and the Junior World Rally Championship, including Ford Fiesta Rally3 — as well as 68 classic rally cars. The other rally cars include Citroën Xsara WRC, Mini John Cooper Works WRC, Ford Fiesta Rally4 and Colin McRae R4, which was previously featured in Dirt 3. Car Builder, which is similar to My Team of the F1 series, allows players to create and customise their own rally cars. The game includes over 200 competition stages across 18 WRC rallies. Multiplayer mode is available for up to 32 cross-platform players. Virtual reality mode is planned to be implemented in the future.

Development and release
The game was revealed on 5 September 2023. It was initially built as a sequel to Dirt Rally 2.0. Codemasters, the developer of the F1 series, would develop their first WRC video game after they regained licence in 2020. The last game by Codemasters with WRC licence was Colin McRae Rally 3 released in 2002, featuring the 2002 season. EA Sports would involve and publish the game after Codemasters was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2021. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4, replacing Ego, which Codemasters was long-term implemented in its previous rally title, the Colin McRae Rally and Dirt series. The game would be available for Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 3 November 2023. It would also feature three covers, with Ford Puma Rally1 for PC, Hyundai i20 N Rally1 for Xbox and Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 for PS5.

Reception
EA Sports WRC received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic. Reviewers praised the handling model, the extensive stage length and the car builder. Criticism mainly stemmed from frame-rate issues, especially on the Windows version.