Codemasters will take over the production of the official World Rallye Championship games from 2023.The WRC will get a new virtual home in 2023.
Current license holder Nacon (formerly known as Bigben Interactive) will have to step down and let the British giants from Codemasters take over. Until then, Nacon will work on WRC 9, which is set to be released later this year, on September 3. The publisher will also release WRC 10 in 2021 and WRC 11 in 2022.
Codemasters brings lots of expertise to the franchise
The agreement gives Codemasters access to all official cars and events of the FIA World Rally Championship. The studio has held the WRC license before, back in 2002. While holding the license, they created Colin McRae Rally 3. Codemasters are also the developers of the official Formula 1 games, GRID and Project CARS.
The British racing game experts have already gained lots of experience in creating rally games by developing the Colin McRae and DiRT series, as well as DiRT Rally and DiRT Rally 2.0. With DiRT 5, the studio has recently announced the newest addition to its virtual rally games for October 2020.
The contract between Codemasters and the WRC will initially run for five years. The first official World Rally Championship game by Codemasters is expected to be released in early 2024.
Image source: Nacon/WRC
