Forum Discussion

New Scout

7 months ago

Esports Plans? Bug Report Permission? WRC Ending?

Hello EA SPORTS WRC Team and Community,

I would like to share some thoughts, feedback, and questions — some about WRC, and one about F1 Esports. Please read carefully.

1. Will There Be Any Esports in EA SPORTS WRC?
I bought this game hoping to compete in an esports challenge because I feel much more confident in this game compared to the F1 series.
However, nothing official was ever announced. Can someone confirm whether an esports tournament was ever planned or if it was canceled because of unresolved corner-cutting exploits and anti-cheat issues?
It would be great to know whether there’s still hope or not. Please let us know if the idea was scrapped or is still in progress.

2. May I Submit a Bug Report in Video Format for Time Trial Mode?
I found a bug in Time Trial which I explained long ago in a written forum post, but it seems it wasn’t understood. I believe it needs to be shown via a gameplay recording.
Can I upload or link a video here in the forum to make sure the devs can finally understand what’s happening? Or would that be pointless now, since you announced that development is ending — though you didn’t mention exactly when it stops, so maybe there’s still time to fix a few things?

3. One F1 Esports Question (Sorry if Off-topic):
I know this is the WRC forum, but my question is about the qualification process in the F1 Esports Series.
The official qualification results only go up to F1 2023: https://f1esports.com/qualification/results/2023
And the latest video guide is from 2022: https://f1esports.com/qualification
Yet new drivers appeared in F1 2024 and even F1 2025 seasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_Esports_Series
How did these people qualify in F1 2023 and F1 2024 when there was no visible Esports mode in the game like before, where you had to complete a scenario and appear on the leaderboard? Was the process hidden or done internally?

4. Sad News About WRC Development Ending – Please Reconsider
I was disappointed to hear that EA and Codemasters will no longer develop EA SPORTS WRC. Honestly, I think you are making a mistake.

Here’s my guess why you stopped: I noticed that in some Time Trial Stages, there are only 6.000 to 15.000 leaderboard entries.
Compare that to F1 games Time Trial Tracks, which often have 100.000 to 500.000 entries.
So maybe the game didn’t sell well, and you didn’t make enough from DLCs either.

But this game had huge potential. It is the most complete rally game I’ve ever seen—so many rally cars, stages, and surfaces. I still don’t have time to try them all.
It’s sad that such quality is being dropped while other titles with much less effort continue yearly.

That being said, let’s talk honestly about the pricing.
The base game launched at 60 euros, even though it was broken at launch—frequent crashes, stuttering, and even an anti-cheat conflict that made it unplayable for 3 months.
And on top of that, you added four separate DLCs, each costing 20 to 30 euros.
Sorry to say this, but that’s greedy behavior. Asking 60 plus 100 euros for a game that didn’t even work properly at first? That’s unacceptable.
You lost player trust because of this — not just because of bugs, but because you treated your audience like walking wallets.

5. Final Words – WRC vs F1 Game Quality
WRC is a model for how a serious game should be developed.
You kept one platform, added meaningful content, and built a long-term experience. Despite early issues, it evolved into a polished product. This is exactly the kind of long-term, player-focused development that earns trust.

By contrast, the F1 series feels stuck in a yearly outdated money-printing cycle — rushed releases, recurring bugs, minimal innovation, and inflated pricing. Many fans accuse the devs of copy-pasting features, and I agree.
There’s a clear lack of responsibility for quality, especially when players are asked to pay 60 euros for a product that sometimes doesn’t even function properly at launch.
On top of that, just like in WRC, the F1 games also include multiple expensive DLCs, adding even more costs for players. This kind of pricing strategy feels greedy and exploitative, especially when the base experience is already unstable.

I strongly believe the F1 series should follow the WRC model:

- Stop releasing a new game every year

- Keep one base platform and simply update it with new cars, driver lineups, and features

- Don’t remake laser-scanned tracks annually — it makes no sense

This is the approach that games like WRC and Counter-Strike 2 have taken. They evolve, improve, and actually listen to their communities.
That’s why CS2 never releases annually — it doesn't need to. Its value grows over time instead of being reset every year, and that is why it succeeds.

WRC was close to achieving that same standard. Please don’t throw away such a solid foundation. I sincerely ask that you reconsider your decision to end development.

Thank you for your time. I hope someone from the team reads this and takes it seriously.

All the best in the future

12 Replies

GawgPorkChop
Seasoned Veteran
3 months ago
I had another thought today after a full six hour session of WRC3 career mostly, plus training and the daily challenge. Edit: The actual game was WRC10, catagory 3 career.
A game has to be good to make six hours fly by. I think that the devs of WRC 10 really nailed the controls with that game. I should say I played 890 hours of DR2 a couple of years ago, and It's really hard to say which sim is the most "sim like."
If I had to choose I'd go with K- team (sorry forgot the name). A bit harder, but really does nail it.
Balance that against the fact that DR2 is a 2019 release. Even an incremental improvement of the Sim feel of the latest game, which I haven't played yet would make it impossible for me to really say who did the sim part (the most important to Rally fans best.) So there are 2 great Rally sim devs currently.
I'm not posting as a dev vs dev thing. They are both great. The two things that occured to me:
Actually this is reoccur. It's really such a shame to lose such an excellent and enjoyable franchise. That's regardless of who the devs are because as I've clearly alluded, they are both well up to the job. It really is kind of sad.
2. This is the only somewhat negative thing I will say about WRC10, and you have heard it before. It's the whole menu system which isn't intuitive at first. But that's picked up after a couple of sessions.
What baffeled and actually irritated me was the lack of any explanation for the advanced vehicle setups.
So many people have said this. I even went back to WRC8 for a couple of hours to read the explaination notes that pop up with each setting (springs, diffs, gear ratios etc). But when I had that mostly memorized it didn't translate well, or help much with WRC 10. The setting are either differenent or something. That's not bad. It's innovation. But if there is ever a reboot of the WRC games (I can't help but be optimistic about it.) please add popup explainations in a similar fashion or better then in WRC8.
It may seem like a small thing because I believe everything else is top notch. But as I put a lot of time into my favourite genre, and each game is slightly different in layout of adv. settings (not a bad thing - racing tech always improves, every year almost.) I do get frustrated when I could easily understand, and usually feel the differences with just a "sensible," amount of testing on test tracks and practicing, throughout WRC8 (I haven't played 9 yet.)
But in WRC10. Although I know the principles of real rally set up it didn't help too much when presented with just numbers, no reference, and defaults which are often the same. While "safe," they soon become too too beginner friendly. What I mean is I want to max out every bit of performance, although of course it is the actual driving/controls which are the biggest factor in setting good times. To be clear, player skill is the biggest factor by far, but getting a couple of extra seconds by finding an excellent set up can make all the difference.
I bet a lot of players just give up with the whole adv. tunning aspect of the game, but I would like to do that part, fully, but with explanations of approx what each setting does (like WRC 8, that was enough.) Then if I mess up I only have myself to blame and will practice some more.
Apologies for going on about just one aspect, the only negative aspect, and probably mostly for people like me who put 100s of hours into each release are the ones who are genuinly disappointed with that.
Okay, enough said about that.
Finally the games are great, and I sincerly hope that EA, together with the devs, reconsider reviving WRC games, say, in two years or so time. No major rush, plenty of content, but I would be great if in say 2027 or 2028, there was at first rumors, which quickly became true by an announcement that EA together with either dev team have decided to release EA Sports Rally 2028!
Thank you. Again, apologies for the text wall and dwelling on the one negative thing, when pretty much everything else it great.
It's just that I take the WRC games (and both Dirt Rally games, original, and DR2) in an enthusiastic time absorbing kind of way. It's a hobby, speciafically Rally Sim games.
GawgPorkChop
Seasoned Veteran
2 months ago
I'm not sure the reason for the following:
Recently, WRC 9, WRC 10, WRC Generations have been on sale, both Epic and Steam. 90% discounts. No discount on the latest WRC (coded by code masters).
What I find odd is that last I checked, only the very latest WRC game is available via the EA - APP. I searched the store as I don't like linking accounts. Not there, nothing. So EA now only sells the very latest release of WRC?
As it turns out for the earlier games it is not necessary to link to EA app if bought through Steam. Not sure about Epic. Anyway I took advantage and bought 2 games to complete my collection. Only the expensive very latest I don't have. Even WRC generations was only about $5.00 on Steam sale. A real bargain.
I wonder why only EA have stopped selling the earlier games. I live in Japan at the moment, perhaps it's regional?