Dirt Rally

Dirt Rally is a racing game focused on rallying and rallycross. Players compete in timed stage events on tarmac and off-road terrain in varying weather conditions. On release, the game featured 17 cars, 36 stages from three real world locations - Monte Carlo, Powys and Argolis - and asynchronous multiplayer. Stages range from 4 to 16 km.

Subsequent updates added three more locations in the form of Baumholder, Jämsä and Värmland, as well as rallycross and player versus player multiplayer modes. Codemasters announced a partnership with the FIA World Rallycross Championship in July 2015, leading to the inclusion of the Lydden Hill Race Circuit (England), Lånkebanen (Norway), and Höljesbanan (Sweden) to the game.

Dirt Rally was developed by Codemasters using the in-house Ego engine. Development began with a small team of 10–15 individuals following the release of their 2012 video game Dirt: Showdown. The team has emphasised a desire to create a simulation with Dirt Rally. They started by prototyping a handling model and creating tracks based on map data. The game employs a different physics model from previous titles, rebuilt from zero.

To recreate authentic car sounds, the developers recorded nearly fifty real world rally cars by placing up to ten microphones in each car's engine bay, at the intake, above the exhaust, and inside the cabin. The audio mix depends on the player's camera location, and also the surrounding environment due to modelling of reverb on each stage. The sound design team also captured details such as gravel kick-up, waste-gate chatter, and the whine of straight-cut transmissions. They primarily recorded on-track rather than on a rolling road in order to accurately capture the car going through its gears under load and also off-throttle deceleration. Game director Paul Coleman lent his voice as the game's English-speaking co-driver, recording calls whilst sitting on a D-Box motion rig as a level designer drove the stage, speaking into his own intercom system he uses for real-life co-driving.

Dirt Rally received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic.

GameStar gave the game 90% and said "Dirt Rally is the best rally simulation at the moment and one of the best racing games of all time. Beginners will find it to be quite difficult". GamesTM celebrated the change of direction, saying "this is the best thing the 'Dirt' name has ever been associated with and rallying enthusiasts are sure to be relieved that the obsession with the kind of American slang that was only partially hip in the 90s has been overcome and removed". Play said that "it doesn't patronise with gimmicky mechanics, nor is it a dry, joyless simulation".