British publisher and developer Codemasters will acquire the rights to release games based on the FIA’s World Rally Championship. That will happen from 2023.
The VGC website, among others, reports that the license agreement means that Codemasters has the rights to release official World Rally Championship games from 2023 to 2027. It will be a series of five annual games released for PC, consoles and mobile platforms. The agreement also gives Codemasters the right to host esports events based on WRC racing competitions.
Codemasters previously held a WRC license to make rally games, which led to the release of the first three Colin McRae Rally games in 1998, 2000 and 2002. The British company no longer made use of that license with the next titles in the series from 2003. Codemasters is also known for official F1 games, the Grid and Dirt racing games. The Dirt series is in fact the continuation of the Colin McRae Rally series and these games are also all about rally racing. Dirt 5 is scheduled for October and will receive 120fps support on Xbox Series X. If Codemasters continues the Dirt games in the years to come, the company will own two rally game series.
Between 2010 and 2013, Italian developer Milestone makes WRC games, and in 2013, French publisher Bigben Interactive acquired the license. This company hired French developer Kylotonn, who has created WRC 5, 6, 7 and 8 to date. WRC 9 will be available September 3rd and will also be officially released for Xbox Series X and Playstation 5. WRC Promoter, an FIA business unit that manages the commercial rights of the rally competition, recently announced that WRC 10 and 11 will also be released ; to this end, the license agreement with Bigben has been extended until 2022.
WRC 8