On the face of it, it’s the most obvious of deals. DiRT née Colin McRae Rally has long been the go-to game for virtual heroes of the world’s finest stages.
And from 2023 – astonishingly a quarter of a century on from the launch of Colin McRae Rally – the game’s maker Codemasters will take over the rights to publish the FIA World Rally Championship game from BigBen Interactive.
The new deal between the British video game developer and WRC Promoter will run for five years from the start of 2023.
The first game – based on that ’23 season – will be launched before the end of March, 2024.
DiRT fans needn’t worry about their favorite title, DiRT 5 is out in October. Codemasters said: “We are committed to rally and the DiRT Rally team is already working on their next project ahead of the WRC agreement in 2023.”
The first three versions of Colin McRae Rally – from 1998 to 2002 – ran with official cars and rallies from the WRC. With no official WRC license, the fourth version of the game lost the WRC element. Two decades on, Codemasters will be back bringing the WRC to the biggest fan base around the world.
