WRC8 or World Rally Championship 8 is a racing simulation game. It released for other consoles in September 2019 with positive reviews. Does it speed its way to the finish line or crash and burn?

I have to be honest, I have never played a WRC game before. I never even heard of the series until I saw the Switch announcement trailer a few days before launch. The trailer is what piqued my interest in the series as I have been looking for a more realistic racing game. Although, I don’t know too much about World Rally Championship, from what I can tell WRC 8 is a pretty good representation of it. The game includes fifty teams and fourteen rallies. A rally is a driving course with fifteen to twenty-five timed sections that driving teams compete on.   

Career mode is more than just winning races, it also includes managing the crew. Members of the crew are important as they help forecast the weather and scheduling events such as training. Managing crew members can be a bit difficult considering you must manage salary and even morale. Balancing the budget can be a bit hard because if you’re not winning races you are not making the money needed. Losing races also lowers the morale of the crew and you because if your car is too damaged, morale drops it even lower. Don’t feel like putting in the effort of managing the entire crew? No problem, there is also season mode where you get to take place in rallies without having to manage the crew. 

WRC 8

If playing a season isn’t something that fully interests you there are weekly challenges, leaderboards, training courses, and a test area. WRC certainly provides plenty of racing opportunities for fans.

As you race around the track, every part of your car is able to be damaged. Take too much and your car will not be able to continue and you must forfeit the race. Tire traction was also included as it obviously helps control the car in different weather conditions. The control of the vehicle between the changing weather was a nice touch and made it feel super authentic. 

The main issue for me was with the steering, initially. I thought it was a tough learning curve. After about an hour of trying to get the hang of steering in the test area or the training session tracks, I still didn’t get to where I felt confident to compete in a race as I would either go way too slow or my car would take too much damage and I would be forced to quit. I decided to do a search for tips on steering controls. In my research, I found many players on the Switch were finding the controls to be difficult to master, especially when compared to its counterparts on other consoles. 

WRC 8

WRC is overall enjoyable despite the steering issue. Managing the career mode and/or just doing the season is a fair amount of content and gameplay to take part in. Unfortunately, steering being a huge mechanic in the WRC8 makes it speed past the finish line a little behind the other racing titles already on the Switch.