WRC 6 (PC) Review

By Jamie Mercer 06.03.2017

Review for WRC 6 on PC

Time to get this out of the way early on: is WRC 6 the best rally experience on the market to date? No. That probably still rests with Codemasters and the DiRT series; however, Kylotonn's fully licensed effort is still more than capable of standing on its own and in some cases offers something its competitors can't. Cubed3 has already taken an early look at the latest WRC title at a special pre-launch event, and even reviewed the PS4 release, but how does it handle on PC? With the US release just popping up, now is the perfect time to find out…

WRC 5 was met with a mixed reception. When Cubed3 travelled to Paris to attend the launch event last year, developer Kylotonn and publisher Big Ben were keen to emphasise they had taken on-board feedback from gamers and would be implementing these changes into WRC 6. The biggest complaint with the previous release was that the courses felt too wide, there was no sense of danger, and it was too easy to drift. This has been addressed front-on in WRC 6, with claustrophobic courses causing all manner of car crushing mayhem, where one minor miscalculation can be the difference between clipping the apex and bombing nose-first into a rogue rock. The sense of speed - and danger! - is now most certainly present, as hazards whip past cars at an alarming pace, especially in the bonnet camera view.

The various stages themselves are all nice enough, yet lack that certain je ne sais quoi that its peers deliver. Driving triumphantly through shallow water should result in a thunderous spray, but sadly in WRC 6 the experience is lacklustre. Everything on the surface looks very nice, very sharp, and detailed, but it's all just a little bit 'hollow.' All of the teams that would be expect are available to play as, which is the norm for a licensed rally sim, but, at the same time, this is also where WRC 6 falls down. It is so prescriptive about what teams or cars are available to use that pining creeps in for classic rally cars or drivers, and being limited to similar looking hot hatches can grow wearisome.

Screenshot for WRC 6 on PC

That being said, the cars themselves handle very well. Kylotonn has been working very hard with professional rally drivers to ensure that the way the cars feel and drive is authentic. Other titles may offer a 100% sim experience, but with WRC 6 it feels slightly more forgiving than it perhaps ought to. The vehicles have a considerable weight to them as you throw them around corners, and the feedback and minor alterations needed on different terrain is pleasant in its attention to detail.

There have been a few occasions where (admittedly careless) driving has resulted in being 'stuck' in parts of the course, and without a rewind feature, commonly seen in other titles, this has been frustrating as often just trying to reverse doesn't solve the problem. This may have been a deliberate intention to exclude this feature, as there are hopes for WRC 6 to be played competitively, with real prizes up for grabs. Coinciding with the times that real races on the circuit occur, gamers will be able to compete on the game equivalent, including qualifying and finals.

Although perfectly respectable in its own right, there is nothing especially innovative about the career mode on offer, besides perhaps a pleasant feature that measures gamers' driving styles and the types of drivers wanted by various teams. If the driver's style does not correlate with the desire of the team, resentment can form and repairs from pit crews can take longer.

Screenshot for WRC 6 on PC

Cubed3 Rating

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10

WRC 6 offers a solid and perfectly respectable rally experience that has a more accessible first route into rally games for the uninitiated. A certain improvement on its predecessors, it sets out a new roadmap for how the titles should be going forward. Although shallow in parts - especially audio - there is still a lot of enjoyment to be had with fun handling and the mix of real courses, and 'based on real locations' special stages gives an authentic World Rally Championship experience. Ambitious eSports aspirations were perhaps a stage too early for this series, but there is definitely potential here and it will be worth keeping an eye on the next title to see if the team can iron out some of the wrinkles.

Developer

Kylotonn

Publisher

PQube

Genre

Driving

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  7/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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