How to Play EA Sports WRC Early

Play EA Sports WRC early.jpg
We are just two weeks away from players getting their hands on EA Sports WRC, so here’s how to play this exciting new rally game early.

Image credit: EA Sports

Announced last month with a November release date, EA Sports WRC has quickly become one of the most anticipated racing games of 2023. Frequent information deep dives and very promising content creator first impressions have left the simracing community finally looking forward to a new rally release.

With that in mind, players are sure to want to try it out for themselves as soon as possible. We certainly cannot wait to jump back in and get our rallying careers up and running. So here is how to play the game as early as three days before the 3 November release date.


Pre-Order EA Sports WRC​

Like majority of modern titles, players that buy EA Sports WRC before its release will get to play early. Pre-ordering offers up to three days early access. So your first hours in EA Sports WRC could well take place from 31 October.

There is more good news. Anyone that owns Dirt Rally 2.0 can pre-order the new game with a 10% discount. In fact, the only available version of the game comes in at a base price of €49,99. However, loyal Codemasters rally fans that played Dirt Rally 2.0 can get this new game for €44,99 until 3 November.


Along with the three days of early access, those that pre-order EA Sports WRC will get access to five so-called VIP Season Passes. These will add additional gameplay content such as special events, challenges and rallies. Furthermore, Livery and Apparel packs for each of the three Rally1 manufacturers will be provided to those that pre-order the game.

Everything we know​

Picking back up where Dirt Rally 2.0 left off, EA Sports WRC is the return of the Codemasters rally game, this time under the official WRC licence. It will feature the new generation of top-class hybrid R1 rally cars alongside a host of modern and classic vehicles spanning a 78-strong car list. These models make up a grand total of 18 classes from the history of rallying.

Players will get to race this long list of cars on over 600 individual kilometres of road. A total of 18 rally locations once Central Europe releases post-launch will make for great variety. Furthermore, longer than ever before Codies stages will span up to 35km in a single run.


The addition of longer stages is reportedly thanks to a new engine approach. For the first time in many years, the British studio will not use the Ego engine on a new title. Instead, EA Sports WRC is uses the Unreal Engine allowing for more natural lighting and larger environments.

In EA Sports WRC, there will be many game modes to entertain. The Career Mode will surely enthral many with its builder cars. Meanwhile, Moments will see players travel back to iconic moments in rallying history. The Multiplayer side of the game will feature the ability to create massive cross-platform rallies in Clubs.

All of these game modes should be enjoyable thanks to an overhauled handling model. The developers took Dirt Rally 2.0 and seemingly improved each element of it. Our recent test of the game left us very impressed.

Will you play EA Sports WRC early or wait a bit? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
About author
Angus Martin
Motorsport gets my blood pumping more than anything else. Be it physical or virtual, I'm down to bang doors.

Comments

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D
I am so sorry we didn't live up to your highest expectations, Mr. HardCoreSimracer supremacist. :roflmao:
 
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I keep having sleepless nights about my 8 year old PC build being able to handle EA Sports WRC or not.

DIrt Rally 2 runs just fine on most settings at ultra ???
 
Premium
I am so sorry we didn't live up to your highest expectations, Mr. HardCoreSimracer supremacist. :roflmao:
Me?

I don't even like sims...

Its all about the Overtake_gg

I have no idea what that means though
 
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That physics video kinda ruined the magic of WRC (and DR 2.0) for me. All this time it really was a simcade after all. I'll still play the heck out of WRC, it looks fun (and that's the point, right?). But I'm now fully resigned to playing RBR for sim rally.
 
That physics video kinda ruined the magic of WRC (and DR 2.0) for me. All this time it really was a simcade after all. I'll still play the heck out of WRC, it looks fun (and that's the point, right?). But I'm now fully resigned to playing RBR for sim rally.
Stop watching nonsense videos driving around in chase cam and making up nonsense with scarce evidence to back them up while making up fancy sounding terms.
 
The whole concept/idea of "pre ordering so you can play a few days earlier" makes makes me irrationally irritated. If I can still pre-order between Oct-31 and Nov-3 I still get access, no? So it makes absolutely no sense. Just move the release day?

In other games when it is combined with some deluxe edition it is a whole different story and it's just exploiting people who cannot wait a few more days to "enjoy" a usually broken release a few days earlier for more money. How is that a thing!?

Sorry for the rant about my frustration with the gaming industry, looking forward to the benchmarks the first few days if I should use my "loyalty discount".
I agree, it's just exploiting customers. On the other hand you get a bunch of enthusiastic launch-testers and of you're quick with the analysis and patching, you can roll out a "Day 1 patch" for the masses on the real release date.

For smaller companies, some kind of early access can make sense to get some money intake already for the last stages of development. Not for EA though.

I'll "Pre-Order" because of the 5€ discount but remember that you can still get a refund from steam within the first 2h of gameplay.
 
Saw this video in different places. Seems like it's getting quite viral for such an unknown yt channel!
That physics video kinda ruined the magic of WRC (and DR 2.0) for me. All this time it really was a simcade after all. I'll still play the heck out of WRC, it looks fun (and that's the point, right?). But I'm now fully resigned to playing RBR for sim rally.
Yep.. Although it didn't ruin anything for me, I just felt great satisfaction to finally know why I never liked DR 2.0.
I loved DR 1 but I just kept on crashing in DR 2.0 if I didn't drive so slowly that it stopped being fun for me.
I never bothered to analyse it but that video makes a lot of sense.
Especially explains why gravel is still really good but tarmac just awful.

In DR 1, the cars didn't really have weight and lots of grip, so you just wiggled on and could still push.
In DR 2.0, things got "more realistic", but it just wasn't fun for me.

A little bit of blah blah, not directly related to your quote:
I got into WRC 10 (and Generations) over the last few weeks though and they are a LOT of fun, after getting a Moza Wheelbase, which has the possibility of a custom ffb curve in the software.
The ffb from WRC 7-Gen is absolutely awful in my opinion. Dead in the center and then suddenly massive ffb punches at 20-30° steering angle.
Plus the recommended settings you can find all have the fake center-spring active.
With the moza base, I've set 10% ffb = 40% ffb and 100% ffb = 60% ffb.
Interestingly, this transforms the ffb into feeling similar to DR 2.0 or even AC!
Having the fun of my Rallye-Life right now :)

I can't wait for the new EA WRC. Looks like they made it a lot more "fun" than DR 2.0 and I can now bend the ffb to my liking in all games.

Not advertising Moza, but this ffb curve feature is never really mentioned in any reviews and it's real game changer, literally, for me!

Stop watching nonsense videos driving around in chase cam and making up nonsense with scarce evidence to back them up while making up fancy sounding terms.
As an engineer, this video makes a lot of sense. No fancy terms, just the correct words to describe the case. They're simply not simple.
Even in cockpit view, you can find yourself glued to guardrails without understanding why.
 

Good video. Codies have always used the crummy single pivot point technique and, as the video shows, it's garbage. Likewise with the tyre slip. Likewise with suspension. All garbage.

Not bothering to simulate these things saves them plenty CPU, and saves the real work of actually coding it. (What are they paid for, if not that?) Just make the gfx kinda look nice? Job done.

I mean, they have only one car to simulate at a time anyway, and yet they don't bother to do the basic (but difficult and -for the player- engaging) stuff. After 30 years at it!!

The tyres, suspension and basic car physics are garbage. Good job it isn't a driving simulator then!

What a complete waste of 16 core processors blasting away at 4-5Ghz. And a GPU sucking up 400W.

None of which means people can't enjoy it. But folks that want believable car handling (What else?!) as a fundamental but basic part of a "simulation" will surely not.

Anyone for RallyCitizen crowdfund? Should be pretty easy to do better than this garbage.
 
That physics video kinda ruined the magic of WRC (and DR 2.0) for me. All this time it really was a simcade after all. I'll still play the heck out of WRC, it looks fun (and that's the point, right?). But I'm now fully resigned to playing RBR for sim rally.
You can enjoy these games for what they are, and there is no sin, crime or guilt in that. It has no tyre physics, but that doesn't mean it cannot be a fun and engaging title It's just a different metagame compared to RBR.
 
Yep, for me it's all about having fun!
Sadly DR 2.0 wasn't fun for me but had better FFB than DR 1 so I couldn't really enjoy DR 1 anymore.
The wrc games have frametime issues (rtss shows a flat line but the game simply stutters although the fps stay consistent) and the ffb of them is awful imo.
Now my Moza R12 finally makes the wrc ffb brilliant by completely bending the ffb curve and yeah, it's not realistic, but it's a lot of fun for me and I can judge the physics pretty well, so it's alright.

EA WRC seems to be not more realistic than the later WRC games or DR 2.0, but it seems to be a lot of fun with good stages and good ffb.

So I cran criticise it a lot for the weird rearwheel pivot point steering, but hopefully I will have a lot of fun anyway :)
 
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And they wonder why Forza Motorsport got leaked, and playable online.
Pre-release is as stupid as DLC.
Just make the game, test it properly then release it complete.
 
Miracle? It didn't happen! The gravel physics of Project CARS 2 (with assist disabled) and iRacing remain the best rally simulators since RBR.
 

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