Bigben Interactive and Kylotonn Racing released a brand new trailer for the upcoming WRC 8, which breaks down all the major content changes, updates, and improvements for the career mode in the rally-based racing simulator due for release on Steam, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One.
The four minute trailer briefly touches on some of the key features in the game, ranging from the 52 playable teams based on official FIA World Championship rally organizations, along with 14 different countries represented across 100 special stages featured in the game, along with the all new e-sports challenge mode that will bring weekly events to WRC 8 for people who care about that level of online competition.
You can check out the trailer below.
The developer walkthrough of the career mode is highlighted by Benoit Gnomes, who walks gamers through the ins and outs of the mode, what’s been overhauled, what’s stayed, and what’s changed.
The major change to the career mode is that players will basically live out the daily lives of the driver, which starts with the calendar, where you’ll plot out your activities, see what assignments you have, and use the events to earn rewards and XP, almost identical to the way Slightly Mad Studios setup the career mode in Project CARS.
You’ll start with tutorial and training sessions, and then work your way up to more challenging rally events. In order to progress through the game effectively, you’ll have to build up and work cohesively with your team, which is composed of six different crew types, including but not limited to the engineer, agent, mechanic, and meteorologist.
You’ll have to manage your whole team, upgrading and changing your crew as you see fit. This ties into the third pillar of the career mode: the skill tree.
I’m not fond of these kind of meta-games additions to racing titles, as I prefer when the upgrades and modifications are mechanics-based and themed around the vehicle rather than the player-character or crew, but it is what it is.
In the case of WRC 8, the skill tree will affect both your crew and your car. You’ll be able to upgrade these stats over time.
Beyond the career layout, you’ll also have to deal with new gameplay alterations that will affect the your vehicle’s performance. This includes dynamic weather changes that can occur before, after, and even during a leg of the race. You’ll need to work with your meteorologist to find the best setup for your car to adapt to the changes in weather depending on the location and conditions.
They also changed the starting categories for the career mode this time around. Instead of working your way up to the WRC Tier 1 category from the very bottom of the Junior WRC, you can now choose to either start at the Junior WRC or start at the WRC Tier 2.
To help balance out the new starting point, they’ve added the new WRC 2 Pro category, so you’ll still have to race through a series of other stages before you can reach the first tier.
Moving up the ranks will also increase the difficulty of the stages, which includes taking on multi-stage races where you’ll be racing up to 23 kilometers across different road surfaces and dealing with different conditions.
There’s nothing specifically spectacular about the career mode compared to other career modes, but if you’re into rally racing and you need a new fix, hopefully WRC 8 will be a worthwhile entry in the series when it launches on the Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and on PC come September, 2019. For more info feel free to visit the official website.
