WRC Generations is the 11th in the long-running series, and it is (at least for now) the last outing from KT Games and NACON. The developers have been behind-the-wheel of this series since WRC 5, and the series has only gotten bigger and better year over year since. After last year’s entry, KT Games has been riding high on it’s great reception. What we have here is a game filled to the brim with cars and modes that exceeds its predecessor, ever so slightly to be a great sendoff. WRC Generations is refined rally racing and simulation to be the pinnacle of the series.
After a short driving test, WRC Generations assesses your skillset and assigns a difficulty, allowing you to sign-off on the settings before jumping into the game. There are two main single-player modes, season and career. With season mode, you have the choice of starting at the bottom of the ladder season in the Juniors with WRC3, or skipping that for Manufacturer for WRC2. Oddly for veterans or just anyone looking to increase the challenge, you can’t skip WRC2 for WRC proper. With WRC3, every team and driver uses the Ford Focus for an even playing field as you learn the ropes. In WRC2, different teams drive different cars, and more closely resembles the challenge of WRC, but the cars are slower. It’s a fun progression for those new to the series, but can feel like a slog even if you skip to WRC2 for returning players over the years. That said, the season mode is a great way to emulate the actual 2022 season to follow along.
With the career mode, is largely unchanged but does feature some quality of life improvements. Mainly you are no longer arbitrarily gated from accessing the privateer mode to design a team from the ground up. Having that barrier removed will ease the strife for a lot of players who wanted more creative freedom. Now, what separates this mode from seasons is the fact that you play both manager and driver of your team. You’ll have full control of how the team grows, as you’ll have to hire and fire team members, control salaries, and invest in the upgrades that benefits the team the most. It’s an immersive and deep way to play the series, and is the best iteration of the career yet.
New to WRC Generations is the Leagues mode, the inclusion of Hybrid cars, and full crossplay for consoles and PC. Leagues mode is an impressive offering, eschewing the typical daily and weekly challenges found in prior and similar titles for a deeper experience. Now you’ll be competing in your choice of solo or team leagues across an entire season with its own ranking and award system. KT Games didn’t have to go this hard, but they did. Hybrid cars made their way into the 2022 season of the real WRC, and doing so here really changes up the formula. Now these hybrid cars that will build up an electric battery of boost to be used in one of three ways: a quick, short burst to long, sustained bursts of energy that increase horsepower up to 500hp – it’s a great thing for the sport, and a wonderful inclusion here. Lastly, having full crossplay is wholly welcome, and ensures the longevity of the game for years to come.
I do wish the 50th Anniversary Mode from last year’s game was also available in this one. While the premature 50th Anniversary celebration found in WRC 10 was really good, it would really complete the package of this year’s offering. Though the game is not without its selection of legendary cars to choose from, in fact, it has the most the series has ever seen. And since the game includes all prior rallies from previous entries, you can have your pick at re-creating scenarios of the past or dreaming up unique situations.
While not to the level of Forza Horizon 5 or Gran Turismo 7, you are able to create liveries in WRC Generations that follows the formats of those games closely. And when it’s all said and done, you have the ability to share these liveries online for all to use. Given that nearly every rally car from the past and present is found here, the possibilities are endless for liveries to be created and used.
There are many modes to play the game both online and off. Aside from the career progression, there’s a whole mode dedicated to Challenges that will test your efficiency. This mode will focus on time trials, dealing with a severely damaged car, and reaching a certain distance in the shortest amount of time. All of these challenges will reward you with a gold, silver, or bronze trophy for achieving the goal times. Another quality of life feature that the game has, is the ability to bookmark or favorite your four favorite modes on the main section for easy access each time you start the game. I do like that during gameplay, when you return from pausing the game, it slowly increases the speed so that you don’t instantly run off the course.
There’s a wonderful pairing of audio and video to WRC Generations that cannot go unappreciated. All of the car audio is authentic to the vehicle you’re driving, it’s full of macro and micro details. For instance when you’re driving in the cockpit, you can hear your co-pilot clearly as they’re next to you. If you change the camera to outside the car, then the co-pilot’s audio has distortion as they’re now talking to you over the radio. If you damage the car, it’s possible the electronics will malfunction and your co-pilot’s instructions get lost along the way. It’s such a neat inclusion, and I love that it goes that deep when it doesn’t have to.
The visuals are gorgeous, and the smoothest these games have ever performed. I was able to have every game setting maxed, and get over 120fps in most scenarios, it’s in weather like rain and snow would that dip down closer to 100fps. I did notice some micro stuttering and latency even though my framerate was high, and was able to smooth this out by enabling NVIDIA Reflex in the settings, and I noticed significant improvements once enabled.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 9900K @ 5Ghz (Turbo)
– Corsair H115i RGB PLATINUM 97 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
– Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory
– EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12GB GDDR6X FTW3 ULTRA
– Seagate FireCuda SSD (500GB)
– Seagate BarraCuda SSD (1TB + 2TB)
– OWC Aura P12 NVMe SSD (2TB)
With the WRC license heading to EA for 2023, this is a beautiful swansong from KT Games. WRC Generations has the most cars and the most locations for the comprehensive rally simulation experience. The developers went all-out on this one, and it shows with such attention to detail to get everything right. For a series synonymous with this studio, they’ll be missed in the years to come, but have left an indellable impression. WRC Generations is an epic collection and celebration of all things rally, this is essentially a greatest hits and goodbye letter from KT Games.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
