Games
With a whole host of new features coming to WRC 9 for the September 9 release date, we sat down with Alain Jarniou to get all the info on the new game.
Numbered games are never easy, especially when it comes to racing games. The bigger the number; the higher the expectation, because a high number means a team has been at it a while. Thankfully, KT Games (or Kylotonn Games) have been around for just shy of 20 years and have developed titles from all manner of genres (the studio’s debut game was a first-person shooter!), but are mostly known for licensed racers such as WRC, TT Isle of Man and more.
The WRC games veer towards the sim-based racer genre, testing players in the mud (and away from it) and forcing them to master their discipline, and WRC 9 looks set to be more feature-packed than ever before. We recently got the chance to sit down with WRC 9’s game director, Alain Jarniou, to discuss the new tracks, features, how the team makes changes and even a snippet of PS5 and Xbox Series X info.
Improving every time
Kylotonn develops and uses their own physics engine, but the goal is to make every new game as realistic as possible. “Every new WRC game comes with several enhancements of the car physics,” Jarniou explains. “For this new opus, we focused on providing the most realistic rally experience possible. We use the help of pro-gamers and actual rally drivers to tweak and validate the handling according to their feedback. We also made a huge effort on the car sounds this year: it’s a very important part of the driving experience and all the sounds were reworked from scratch.”
One thing that makes life for licensed racers especially tough, is that you have to replicate certain courses year in year out, keeping them interesting for loyal players coming back for every new game. WRC 9 uses real terrain data, so the rallies are on a 1:1 scale, which Jarniou says are “as close as possible to reality, to provide the real feelings and the real flow of the rally”. He continues: “We are also using some new technologies to create roads allowing us to have more control over the curves and each small detail.”
Legends and history
Another thing that helps keep WRC 9 fresh is the addition of new legendary bonus cars. “This year we’ve added four new historical cars into the game, for a total of 15”, says Jarniou, “our objective is to be able to offer the possibility to the player to drive the legendary cars that have won the WRC at least once in the history of the competition.”
Jarniou is keen to tell us about some of the new legendary cars: “One of the new additions is the Audi Quattro. It’s an incredible car to drive and to hear. This car was a real revolution at its time,” he says. “It’s my favourite addition in the game this year. But I’m still loving the Alpine A110, a small and agile car that was the first car to win the WRC in history. Lightweight, with a great power to weight ratio and a beautiful design, it’s still one of my favourite cars (maybe also because it’s a French car)!”
Of course, there are still cars on his bucket list he’d like to include, and while he’s tight-lipped on what they are right now, he was able to tell us that the team are aiming to put all the vehicles that have won the WRC championship at least once in history into the series, so the experts among you can work it out from there.
Racing with friends
One of the features that’s due after launch is the new co-driver mode, allowing you to enact a real race with a friend sat next to you, whose job is to give you the racing info in order to create a truly authentic experience. It sounds a bit mad, and a whole lot of fun, and Jarniou agrees: “We expect it to be both really fun and challenging. It’s a really nice addition to the game for an even more immersive rally experience”, he told us, before adding that it’s going to be free DLC “a couple of months after the game’s release”.
For those of you who are quick to master tracks, there will be daily, weekly, and monthly challenges in WRC 9 to keep you coming back for more of the action, too. “The challenges will cover a wide range of situations and difficulties”, Jarniou says, “and they are totally dynamic activities that we can adjust according to the community feedback all over the season”.
On top of that, you can be part of a club as well. The club itself will have a rank, and the players will also have a rank inside of the club. While there are currently no plans to include in-game rewards for top clubs or high-performers, Jarniou informed us that things can change and it’s very much in the hands of the community. If feedback is good, and people want it, they can add rewards via further title updates.
Next-gen: resolutions and frame rate
WRC 9 is also coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X, and with those consoles comes new power and new possibilities. “The new generation of consoles comes with great and fundamental enhancements,” Jarniou points out. “The gap of power, on CPUs and GPUs, will allow us to manage physics of the game at greater frequency, increasing the frame rate and the resolution, with better graphics, which are very important for the driving experience.”
But there’s more, as Jarniou seems very much a fan of the new systems: “The use of technology such as SSD is also great to enhance the fluidity of the game by improving the loading times.”
New consoles mean new ways to play, and Jarniou has that base covered, too: “The new controllers, with new vibration systems and even haptic capabilities are a real plus for the driving experience, as we can transmit more information about the car behaviour, surface, suspension and braking. It really makes the pad experience closer to sensations you’ve only had using a wheel up until now”
Last but not least, one of the biggest bones of contention when considering which format to play on is which looks and runs the best, but according to Jarniou, the aim is to get WRC 9 to 60fps and 4K fidelity on both Xbox Series X and PS5. He says, “This is what we’re aiming to achieve, and the first results are more than encouraging.” Whichever version we get our hands on first, we can’t wait to get behind the wheel with WRC 9.
WRC 9 is scheduled for release on September 9, 2020 on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC, with Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 versions to come at a later date.
