Lesquin (France), May 16th, 2017 - Bigben and Kylotonn are pleased to announce the upcoming release of WRC 7, the official video game of the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC). The game will be available this autumn on PlayStation®4, Xbox One and PC.

With over one million copies sold in the last 2 years, the WRC license will benefit from the experience of the French studio Kylotonn, which will use all of its expertise to develop a more precise, extreme and realistic game. This year, the level of immersion in the FIA World Rally Championship will be even higher.

WRC 7 will put even more emphasis on the dynamic new-for-2017 World Rally Cars, including Thierry Neuville, Dani Sordo and Hayden Paddon's Hyundai i20 (already 2 victories in 5 events in 2017 for Hyundai Motorsport) highlighted in the trailer called "The Beauty and the Beast", available here:
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This year the World Rally Championship rules have changed, and the cars in which the drivers compete are more powerful and more aggressive. Their new characteristics, enhanced by astonishing aerodynamics and improved handling, will make the rallies even more spectacular. This surge of power experienced while steering and driving with the controller will never have felt so real.

Aggressive, loud and nimble, the WRC 7 cars represent a new challenge for players, who will face off against each other to gain crucial tenths of a second on the Tarmac, dirt and snow of the 13 rallies in the WRC. Players will have the chance to play as their favourite WRC drivers and cars from the 2017 season, including Sébastien Ogier (Ford Fiesta WRC), Kris Meeke (Citroën C3 WRC) or Jari-Matti Latvala (Toyota Yaris WRC).

The Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC is a 380hp version of the road car, able to reach 60mph in less than 4 seconds. For Hyundai Motorsport, the three-door Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC represents the team's third new car since its debut in the Championship back in 2014.

WRC 7 will be available in the autumn of 2017 on PlayStation®4, Xbox One and PC.
 
WRC 7 Announced.png

The long running official World Rally Championship games franchise will be receiving its seventh iteration this year, with an Autumn release window announced by the developers.


To mark the occasion of the first solid news from the WRC 7 development in quite a few weeks, developers Kylotonn Racing Games have released a snappy new trailer showcasing the new for 2017 specification rally cars in action on the only officially licenced FIA World Rally Championship game for either console or PC gaming machines.

Titled 'The Beauty and the Beast', the new game trailer comes in at exactly one minute 30 seconds and features a number of shots of the aggressively styled new for 2017 Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC car on a mix of different stage locations and weather. You can check out the trailer for yourself below:

Judging by the engine sounds in the trailer, which one assumes are from the game and not real life capture, it looks like Kylotonn have really stepped up to the plate in the audio department for this new release, adding a very pleasing level of realism to the game that will be well received by fans of both rallying and the series franchise.

Not much is known about WRC 7 at the stage unfortunately, however what we do know is that the game will again feature all the rallies, cars and drivers of the current WRC season. This is more noteworthy than previous years as for 2017 the WRC field have received some considerable changes to the regulations that govern the sport. Now benefitting from an aggressive and styled look in comparison to previous seasons, the cars are more powerful and look meaner than has been the case in recent memory. Added to the full list of WRC spec cars, it is expected that WRC 7 will continue the tradition of adding the lesser spec'd WRC 2 field to the game for added depth, plus it is not unrealistic to expect the eSports element of the title so heavily supported in WRC 6 will return with further polish for this new release.

Judging by some of the footage I've seen of the game so far, WRC 7 does look like it has taken a step forward in the graphics department since previous releases, as Kylotonn look to push the franchise forward and capitalise on the renewed interest around rally games on console and PC.

Stay tuned to RaceDepartment for more news as and when it becomes available....


WRC 7 is expected to release for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC during the Autumn of 2017.

Check out the WRC Series of games sub forum for more about the long running rally game franchise and to discuss the series with your fellow rally fans.

Looking forward to WRC 7? Do you think this title can finally lift the series into the rally big leagues? Let us know in the comments section below!
 
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Judging by the engine sounds in the trailer, which one assumes are from the game and not real life capture, it looks like Kylotonn have really stepped up to the plate in the audio department for this new release, adding a very pleasing level of realism to the game that will be well received by fans of both rallying and the series franchise.

100% not In-game audio. Other than that, looks quite good.
 
I've never touched one of the WRC titles. I know the Milestone titles were mediocre at best and that Kylotonn have taken a slightly different approach and seem to have more production value than Milestone ever had.

I'll be honest, this one kind of has my interest. Depending on how the reviews look, as well as the presence of assets like authentic sound and a passable physics engine, I may pick it up. The epic stages sound cool, I guess we'll see how things turn out.

I have to say, the 2017 WRC's look fantastic! :p
 
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I'm really interested in how this one turns out. I always thought the Milestone games were quite fun, even if pure arcade. But pretty honest about it and fun in short bursts.

WRC 5, the first one by Kylotonn, was a disaster in my eyes. The game was bland, looked horribly dated and most importantly was neither the fun arcade the previous games were nor a more serious sim-ish game. It just didn't work. I think I spent about 5 hours playing it overall and that included literally forcing myself to play it just to have something to upload to YouTube. I just couldn't do it. It was that bad.

WRC 6 was actually quite fun. They improved from 5 in a lot of aspects. It still had issues, but it was a much better game than plenty of people would make you believe. It looked better, played better (much better stages for example - still only fictious, apart from the SSS, but felt much less artificial than those in 5) and was quite fun to play. Enjoyed the career mode and also the online challenges (kinda copied from Dirt Rally).

So if WRC 7 will be as much of an improvement as going from 5 to 6 was, this could end up being quite interesting.
 
Well, didn't like any of the recent games, so I don't think I'll get this. Although, only reason I refunded WRC 6 was because I could not use G27 pedals and shifter with a T300 wheel, it would only recognize one device. If the game has proper multiple device support I might get it, as a fun, arcade rally game alongside with DiRT 4
 
WRC 7 1.jpg

With a release of the seventh official WRC franchise game later this year, finally we learn something about what to expect from the new title...

Somewhere deep in the heart of Kylotonn Games Headquarters four people are sat in the studio offices deciding the future direction of the company...

Developer 1: "Say, let's build a new racing game with the official licence for the FIA World Rally Championship"

Developer 2: "Hey, that's a great idea, the WRC is popular so it will be a good series to recreate".

Developer 1: "Yeah brilliant, popular series, popular game, good sales, everyone happy. Let's get the marketing guys in to see how we can promote this unique, exclusive, licence".

Enter men in expensive suits and unnaturally oily hair.

Marketing guy: "Ok here's the plan. Let's reveal nothing about the game, with no promotion and no website presence worth mentioning".

Marketing guy 2: "Epic, also make sure to not reveal any screens from the 12 unique locations or full WRC and WRC2 field. Just include a couple from the least popular car and hope people buy it".

Developers 1 and 2
: "Perfect, that's done then, plan sorted and off for a nice cup of tea. Good job people".

This is basically how the whole of the development life of WRC 7 seems to have panned out in a nutshell. The game is officially a recreation of the increasingly improving World Rally Championship and holds the exclusive licence to recreate the series on PC and console. As such you would expect a new release into the franchise to be something of a big deal, with regular teasers and information pushed out into the wide world of the internet at regular intervals. Seriously just check out how Project CARS does it for some idea of proper marketing, but Kylotonn seem determined to keep everyone in the dark about the new game. Which is... strange.

The somewhat modest marketing and promotion strategy is all the more confusing considering the less than stellar reputation of Kylotonn and past WRC franchise releases, so do we have something to worry about with this title, or are the studio just simply pretty rubbish at promoting themselves?

Well lucky for us the team behind the title have seen fit to sit down and talk shop with redbull.com, so we actually have a chance to find out a bit more about the game and make another small step towards deducting if WRC 7 can make the most of the incredible licence it holds and produce a worthwhile game capable of living up to the reputation of the real world series.

You can read the full Redbull interview with Game Director Alain Jarniou here, but for ease of reading I'll pull out the most interesting bits below...

First and foremost it appears that Kylotonn have taken a leaf out of Codemasters book and look to toughen up the experience in WRC 7. Speaking of the stages to be found within the game, Jarniou claims that "The level design of stages has been redefined for a more intense driving experience. Roads are bumpier, borders are closer and more dangerous" which lets face it, dangerous roads with little margin for error are the biggest attraction of top level rallying and should be depicted in a game holding the official WRC licence.

As well as making the stages tougher to drive, Jarniou also confirmed we can expect longer events in WRC 7 than has been previously the case. New for the latest franchise instalment comes "Epic Stages" where players can expect "very long stages providing up to 15 minutes of gameplay. The skills and concentration of rally fans will be pushed to their limits". This is good. Very good indeed. Points round winner to Kylotonn with that one.

WRC 7 3.jpg


Of course the official game gets the official rallies too, so expect all 13 events to be included in the release once it hits our shelves for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Most interesting in terms of the driving experience is the move in 2017 to wider, more aggressive and more powerful WRC cars. These too have been included in the new title, with the "experience of driving the WRC 2017 cars is amazing; they are so agile and powerful that it’s a new dimension for the gameplay of rally games".

"The biggest challenges for WRC 7 was to simulate the behaviour of the new 2017 cars, while the level design was pushing for more realism. To succeed in finding the right balance, car setup was totally remade in parallel with a continuous test on new roads. What we can tell is when we tested WRC 2016 cars in the new environments they were very hard to control. As we want the players to be able to experience the difference between 2016 and 2017 WRC cars in WRC 7, we had to re-adapt them to the new engine and level design" added Jarniou.​

When pushed by Redbull to confirm how much of a lean towards simulation WRC 7 will be, the stock answer still remains slightly ambiguous but promising for those looking for a hardcore experience. Says Jarniou -

"In our game developing process, we first setup a simulation behaviour for more realism, then we develop control aids to provide a wide range of handling possibilities for the player. Keep in mind that, more than ever, the new WRC 2017 cars are more powerful and agile in real life, and they realistically provide more fun"
So basically we don't actually learn anything new from this interview, which keeps with the incredible marketing strategy already in place, however the chat with Kylotonn does end in a bit of a disappointment for a growing number of the sim racing community, namely a lack of VR support in the new title. Why? Is it because of the technical limitations of the game software? Is it a budgetary issue? We'll no not really. When asked if VR will be added to WRC 7 Jarniou basically said they looked into the idea with the previous game and decided fans couldn't concentrate long enough to use VR in a rally game. Yeah, you heard it right. If I wasn't so annoyed about that I'd actually laugh out loud. Obviously WRC 7 is aimed at.... 3 year olds who can't concentrate on something for more than five minutes at a time... kinda rendering the new "epic stages" a bit of a waste of time don't you think?!?! Oh and just in case you think I jest on this point, I'll pop the actual quote below for proof...

"VR, that we tested for WRC 6 – that is still an option we keep in mind, but there is no plan for WRC 7 as it’s very difficult for most players to be able to stay focused for a long time with such a set-up. We’ll take advantage of the PS4 Pro and Scorpio power, for sure".

Classic.

WRC 7 4.jpg


Stay tuned to RaceDepartment as we bring you all the latest news and discussions around the WRC franchise of games. Head over to the WRC sub forum here on the site and catch up with your fellow fans before the game releases to the general public later this year.

Looking forward to WRC 7? Do you think the game can be a success? Let us know in the comments section below!
 
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Well, didn't like any of the recent games, so I don't think I'll get this. Although, only reason I refunded WRC 6 was because I could not use G27 pedals and shifter with a T300 wheel, it would only recognize one device. If the game has proper multiple device support I might get it, as a fun, arcade rally game alongside with DiRT 4
Same here with Accuforce and HE Pro pedals, but i could spare some money because of this shortcomings not just with this title and i don´t feel i miss anything. So please keep this issue with WRC 7 because i´m busy enough with Dirt 4 anyway.
 
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The epics stages and all the new stuff sound interesting, but I the generated stages from D4 seems to be a new mandatory feature to have in a rally game.
 
If you think the promotion of WRC7 is quiet, then Kylotonn's Isle of Man TT game is almost secret, with only 2 offscreen shots, some vague interviews with real life riders and a tiny bit of info leaking out. I believe that's out this year too, with an allegedly laser scanned TT course :-o

And FlatOut 4 wasn't hugely publicised either, which Kylotonn also made. Bizarre!
 
The WRC 6 was not crap at all. What a hell are you talking about ??

Quite big jump compared to their WRC 5. And I hope for even bigger one to WRC 7. Just let them do their job. And prey they'll find someone else in marketing department.
 

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