The makers of DiRT 5 have just signed a 5-year deal to make the next set of World Rally Championship games.
For the longest time, BigBen Interactive was the publisher behind FIA’s World Rally Championship series, both an international competition of rally races featuring the likes of Toyota, BMW, and Subaru, as well as a series of video games. After WRC 9 comes out later this September, the series will instead go to a new publisher.
Codemasters has signed a 5-year deal with the WRC to develop and publish games, with annual titles to run from 2023 to 2027. Those games will be made for console, PC, and mobile, and they’ll also handle any esports tournaments that any of those games generate.
This continues Codemasters’ strategy of gobbling up every racing license they possibly can. However, it also begs the question of what Codemasters will do with DiRT, ostensibly the publisher’s existing rally franchise. Have no fear, for DiRT isn’t going anywhere.
“The DiRT Rally team is already working on their next project ahead of the WRC agreement in 2023,” Codemasters told GamesIndustry.biz.
We can expect our first WRC game from Codemasters to arrive sometime in financial year 2023.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
