‘World Rally Championship’ 2023 video game launching this November

The next iteration in the official series of World Rally Championship (WRC) video games has been announced, ahead of its release on November 3 for Windows PCs, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

Known as EA Sports WRC, it marks the first time the official WRC video game has been developed by Codemasters, the UK-based game company behind the annual Formula One video games.

Codemasters – owned by US video-game giant Electronic Arts (EA) – has previously developed the Dirt (formerly Colin McRae Rally) series of rally video games, but these did not have the rights to the WRC name.

The new game will include 200 stages at 18 locations around the world, with over 600 kilometres of track to race.

There will be over 70 current and past rally vehicles to choose from, the full list of which hasn’t been revealed yet, according to Codemasters and EA.

WRC 2023 will also include Builder Mode, which will let players develop their own rally car by choosing suspension, engine and body elements.

It is unclear what the future holds for Codemasters' Dirt rally game series, which began in 1998 as Colin McRae Rally, and was developed with input from the 1995 World Rally driver's champion, Scottish ace Colin McRae.

In 2009 – two years after McRae's death in a helicopter crash – the game franchise changed its name from Colin McRae Rally to Dirt.

The officially-licensed World Rally Championship game has been running since 2001, and has been created by four different game development companies over that period.