New Free Historical Content Update in WRC 10!

Lesquin, France, November 25, 2021 - NACON and KT Racing are pleased to announce a second free update to WRC 10, the official FIA World Rally Championship video game, for PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Steam PC, and Epic Games Store. Available today on all platforms, this update brings new content, including a new car and new rallies.

The Acropolis Rally: an icon of the Championship returns.

This new free update adds one of the most iconic rallies in WRC: the Acropolis Rally. With winding and dusty mountain roads, sometimes on cliff sides, the Greek Rally is known to be particularly challenging for drivers. Returning to the official WRC calendar in 2021 after a 7-year absence, it was won by Kalle Rovanperä for his 2nd victory of the season! Already present in WRC 10 since the launch through a historical event, the update brings 3 special stages in 2021 version to the experience and also joins the game's Career mode.

Five new anniversary events.

As an anniversary edition of the championship, WRC 10 already offers a large number of historical and key events of the championship since 1973. After the 3 historical events added in October, five new events are now available in WRC 10! Famous driver and co-driver duos will compete in their cars of the time:

●     Rally Argentina in 1994 with Didier Auriol and Bernard Occelli in their Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD,

●     Rally Argentina in 2004 with Carlos Sainz and Marc Martí in their Citroen Xsara WRC,

●     Rally Germany in 2002 with Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena in their Citroën Xsara WRC,

●     the Safari Rally in Kenya in 2000 with Richard Burns and Robert Reid in their Subaru Impreza S5 WRC '99,

●     Rally Mexico in 2016 with Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila in their Volkswagen Polo R WRC.

“Club” mode gets more realistic.

In “Club” Mode, which allows players to create their own online events and championships, a realistic mode is now available to add an extra layer of difficulty. This mode allows you to carry over the damage inflicted on the vehicle to the next stage, to place one or more service parks (and to impose a mandatory passage to a service park in order to equip the car with appropriate tires when the road surface changes between two stages), and finally, the stages are played in one shot and cannot be replayed.

WRC 10 is now on PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and on Nintendo Switch™ at a later date.

Add WRC 10 to your Steam wishlist

About NACON

NACON is a company of the BIGBEN Group founded in 2019 to optimize its know-how through strong synergies in the video game market. By bringing together its 14 development studios, the publishing of AA video games, the design and distribution of premium gaming devices, NACON focuses 20 years of expertise at the service of players. This new unified business unit strengthens NACON's position in the market and enables it to innovate by creating new unique competitive advantages. https://corporate.nacongaming.com/

About Kylotonn

Created in 2006, Kylotonn is one of the most important French video game development studios, also known under KT Racing label. Specialized in motorsports and official developer of the WRC FIA World Rally Championship series and Isle of Man Tourist Trophy, the company is internationally recognized for its know-how and for the passion of its teams. With more than 110 employees as of today in Paris and Lyon, Kylotonn has developed more than 25 titles distributed by major publishers. Kylotonn has forged itself a strong technological expertise thanks to the real-time 3D engine KT Engine that the company owns. At the forefront of the video game industry, this technology is also used within R&D partnerships on autonomous vehicle projects in the automotive industry. Since 2018, NACON, one of Europe's leading video game publishers, holds a 100% stake in the company. Kylotonn is a member of the French National Developers Federation (Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo) and Capital Games. The company is supported by BPI, IFCIC and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. For more information, visit www.kylotonn.com.

About WRC Promoter GmbH

WRC Promoter GmbH is responsible for all commercial aspects of the FIA World Rally Championship, including TV production and the marketing of global media and sponsorship rights. The Promoter also has the responsibility to increase the field of participants and to propose the venues that form the FIA WRC calendar. The World Rally Championship is the FIA’s premium rally series. WRC showcases authentic motorsport, high-performance cars, and the world’s best drivers competing in dramatic surroundings ranging from the ice and snow of Scandinavia to the blistering heat of Italy in mid-summer. Established in its current format in 1973, WRC participants battle for the drivers’ and manufacturers’ world titles at 12 rallies spanning four continents. Additional championship information can be found at www.wrc.com.

Article by: Susan N.

Read More

TT Isle of Man Ride on the Edge 2 - PS4 Review

TT Isle of Man Ride on the Edge 2 by developer Kylotonn (KT Racing) and publisher Nacon (Bigben Interactive)—Sony PlayStation 4 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

---

TT Isle of Man Ride on the Edge 2 is the latest realistic racing simulator from Kylotonn and publisher Nacon who most of you would still know better as Bigben Interactive. Given a motorcycle and the license to drive over 200/kmph, you'd better learn how to handle those speeds fast otherwise you'll be finishing in last place.

If there's one thing I've learnt in the past year is that I suck at real world simulators. WRC8 while a lot of fun to tackle was tough in its own right as you needed to follow directions from your copilot. But Edge 2? You're given guided lines but it's figuring out how fast to take them, when to lean into a turn and when to hit the brake that's going to be the real challenge. That said, it's a good thing then that Edge 2 is very accessible. Given a quick tutorial and how to ride, the final decision on how you want to drive is up to you. There are five different styles from the most basic and hand holding to the most advanced that only pros would want to use. Honestly I spent my time on "help me get through this in one piece" and the semi-pro which while it still helps you out, makes you rely more on yourself than the training wheels.

And the above is the very aspect for me that makes me enjoy these types of experiences. They are new, they are fresh. Sure, once upon a time I mastered Pod Racer, Mario Kart “Insert whichever one you want” and say Mod Nation Racers. But more realistic simulators like this one bring a whole new challenge to the table and with the more realistic approach, you can’t do what you’re generally accustomed to doing in games. You really have to stick to the road. Not take the corners too fast or you’ll flip over. You’ll crash. Being on a motorcycle this time around if you accelerate too fast you’ll wipe out backwards because your front wheel lifted, throwing you off and costing you even more time in the race. Learned that one the hard way…

All of the woe is me aside, this game is gorgeous. The landscapes. The bikes. The sound of nothing more than your motorcycle cutting through small towns and open roads. Edge 2 looked fantastic and I’ve never been happier than to have both a PS4 Pro and a QLED television as that visual as you are coming up a hill with a setting sun? Fantastic. It’s not just about the visuals though. Edge 2 handles very well and while there are some longer initial load times, the overall performance is there and there’s never any choppiness or framerate drops which would honestly be the biggest detriment to an experience like this one.

 

So other than riding your motorcycle, what do you actually do? So like a lot of these more realistic experiences, there’s a schedule for upcoming qualifiers and races that you can take part in. Qualifiers will have you race against others in terms of time as you’ll all leave one after another while races you’ll all leave at the same time and actually race to get #1. Both are pretty much the same “mechanically” and should be taken seriously enough as if you’re not getting into good spots or winning the races, you aren’t going to be able to buy upgrades to your bike or even new bikes anytime soon.

Otherwise, there’s a large map available to either practice on yourself or to go through a series of challenges that are laid out before you. These challenges are really where I started to learn to really ride and figure things out as I went back up to the semi-pro settings taking off the training wheels that had finally let me keep other racers in sight. Having this giant map to ride on I think was possibly one of the biggest and most important features in terms of accessibility as it lets someone learning the ropes and someone who’s brand new figure things out without the frustration of flunking another qualifier or losing another race.

 

While realistic simulators like TT Isle of Man Ride on the Edge 2 may not be for everyone, I would suggest at least checking it out if you’re interested in something new and different. Amazing in the visuals department, there’s an accessibility to the entry that curbs that steep learning curve that would otherwise exist allowing people not familiar with the style to get just as much enjoyment as those riding up near the top and looking for new challenges that the latest entry provides.

 

Score: 8 / 10

Read More

WRC 8: FIA World Rally Championship - XB1 Review

WRC 8 is the latest in the off road racing series to grace consoles and PCs alike. Finally giving up my more fantasy Mario Kart career for a much more realistic one, was I seriously in for a rude awakening. Super responsive, not being able to just hit the pedal to the medal, and the sheer beauty of the environments had me re-learn how to drive in a video game and enjoying every minute of it.

From the very beginning, once everything has been installed as prior to that you can only free drive on whatever track is ready to go, you’re put through testing to see exactly where you should be started. Doing… ok at best, I went into the lesser of the two tiers that meant while I couldn't modify my car at will, I was provided with one that should be able to learn off of while going out and racing through dirt and snowy roads. Having this option set me at ease because there’s a level of control to this style that I was wholly unprepared for and for the first time in YEARS, I was happy for both the XB1 and PS4’s sensitive triggers as they are very much needed in order to control your speeds.

Me being bad aside, well not really as that's the basis of this review, it did take some getting used to figuring out how hard to press for how fast I wanted to do. Happily marked down in km/h, I felt at home especially on the snowy tracks as my car slide this way and that as it would if I was driving on a forest road at 70-80 kh/h. The learning curve for someone not used to this may be a bit larger but the options present to help someone like me out are fantastic. You can set up certain options to assist you until you feel brave enough to turn off the training wheels and then move onto the actual championship mode and do all of your own customizations. Unlike some other titles that simply state “get good or get out”, there are accessibility options to help you smooth in which I found great as it caters to both a new possible fan base and your current one alike with the tougher mode.

Going into career mode, you are presented with loads of options for setting up your crew, unlocking new perks like a meteorologist to help you prep for weather ahead and reducing the time it takes to do repairs on your cars between rallies. These points are unlocked by leveling up with the experience that you gain while either doing training, special crazy things such as driving in a broken car down a tight slope in the dark and the pouring rain, or in the rallies that the previous two help out with. In any of these cases, learning how to control your car and figure out exactly how to move is key in order to make the right checkpoint times to win.

What I really enjoyed is that you aren’t racing against other people on the track. You’re racing against their times. Most parts of these tracks are narrow and you wouldn’t even want to come face to face with someone if you were driving regularly as there’s just no space. So driving at 60-70-80-90-100+ km/h, even the slightest mistake can wreck your car as you flip off the track and ruin your suspension, hit a tree and break your wheel well or your bumper and then have to drag it. Don’t even get me started on losing my steering… You need to be careful, but at the same time, you need to go fast as your opponents do and if you think you’re going fast enough, you probably aren’t.

Putting the controls aside, putting the features aside, hell even putting the physics aside, WRC 8  is one of the prettiest games that I’ve had in my hands in a long time. Everything looks amazing. The dirt tracks, the snowy trees, the campers off to the side for the people that are there to watch, and the cars themselves. The level of visual design only boosts the rest of the features up that much more for an entire package that just sells itself.

It seriously did take me a long time to learn how to drive in a more realistic racing simulator but it was worth it. I was never made to feel like I should just let go of the controller, instead I just felt like I needed to keep pushing so that I could start to take off the assist options to get into that other mode to be a lot more free in my racing choices. Am I there yet? *laughs hysterically* no. Do I plan on getting there? Better believe it!

So overall, WRC 8, FIA World Rally Championship, is a fantastic racing simulator for players of all skill levels. Brand new to the style? Go for it. Coming back for more? Just load up the pro side of things and do what you do best. With plenty of options for everyone, I’m just sad that I’ve waited this long to do some offroad racing.

Game Information

Platform:
Microsoft Xbox One
Developer(s):
KT Racing
Publisher(s):
Bigben Interactive
Genre(s):
Racing, Simulation
Mode(s):
Single Player, Multiplayer, Online / Local Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
INSERT

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More