Summary
AC: Rally is a walk in the right direction, and I look forward to seeing the content made for it. Especially being a rally enthusiast, I feel a bit more passionate for the details of the sport. Although I feel as if AC: Rally in its current state is more like a tech demo to show you what it COULD be, I still appreciate all the love and passion being put into AC: Rally. I'm going to recommend AC: Rally the same way I did with AC: Evo; you're not buying a finished game but instead investing in the future of the product. To some, that's not enough to justify the purchase, and that's totally understandable, but if you plan on buying it and have any interest, then support the developers and offer your feedback. Our voices during these times are meant to support and help the development process, especially in the infancy stages.
AC: Rally in its current state is a 6/10; the love and passion is there, now it's about producing the best product possible as consistently and effectively as in a realistic time frame. I absolutely love and support the teams involved, and a lot of you, I'm sure, do as well.
Developer – Supernova Game studios
Publisher – 505 Games
Platforms – Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S ,PC (Reviewed)
Review copy given by Publisher
NOTE:
The following game is being reviewed in an Early Access State, the game may change after the release of this review, this review reflects the game at the time of publishing.
Without a doubt some of the craziest driving on display can be found watching any form of rally racing. High adrenaline and fast-paced reactions to the always altering terrain under the tires, give an almost unforgivable and unpredictable feeling to the driver as they force their way to the finish line in record times. Developed by Supernova Game Studios in partnership with Kunos Simulazioni, built with the Assetto Corsa physics engine, with the promise to bring one of the best rally sim experiences to date.
Before I get into the review, I’m going to make sure to reiterate that Assetto Corsa Rally is an early access game similar to Assetto Corsa Evo, which was released earlier this year as well. Early adoption of a game does not warrant perfect gameplay or even full functionality, so do remember to base your decisions and opinions on what’s available in its current state, and invest in the future of the product. Now with that little disclaimer out of the way, I will be basing my review more so around the issues instead of focusing on only the issues currently available.
AC: Rally was a surprise for the Sim community, being revealed not even a full month ago at the current time. A big simulation-focused rally game has been wanted for the longest time, especially attached to one of the most popular physics engines out there in this current state of the sim ecosystem. AC: Rally is being developed by a different team this time around; it’s not Kunos at the lead. Instead, it’s Supernova Game Studio being accompanied by Kunos Simulazioni, so the progress between AC: Evo and AC: Rally should not be affected by each other.
AC: Rally launches into early access with 10 licensed cars and 4 rally stages with promises to bring 30+ cars and a large number of different rally stages from across the globe. Currently, the cars available in early access are listed below:
• Alfa Romeo GTA 1300 Junior Gr.2 – 1972
• Citroen Xsara WRC – 2001
• Fiat 131 Abarth Gr.4 – 1976
• FIAT 124 Sport Abarth Rally 16V Gr.4 – 1973
• Hyundai i20N Rally2 – 2021
• Lancia Delta HF Integrale EVO Gr. A – 1992
• Lancia Stratos Gr.4 – 1976
• Lancia Rally 037 EVO 2 Gr.B – 1984
• Mini Cooper S Gr.2 – 1964
• Peugeot 208 Rally4 – 2020
The 4 stages available in early access are listed:
• Rally Alsace-Munster
• Rally Alsace – Saverne
• Rally Wales—Hafren South
Each car has its own unique physics and sounds as expected, offering a unique and varying challenge skillset needed to compete at a higher level of precision and speed, allowing you to specialize in a specific spec of class or manufacturer of choice. Some cars are far more powerful and, of course, have their drivetrain differences. Whether all-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, or even rear-wheel drive, the experience is different every time. As expected with anything that comes out of Kunos, the models are absolutely astonishing and detailed, offering nothing but the highest quality experience for enthusiasts to feel immersed as if they are piloting a Lancia Delta Integrale on the muddy roads of Wales.
The rally stages available are recreations of real-life locations and stages, beautifully recreated to be an almost perfect replica, giving you the feeling of actually being on that stage surrounded by the trees and foliage, with spectators on the side of the lanes watching and cheering you on as you shift into 5th gear, barreling down a mud-covered road. Each stage varies in distance and difficulty, some being a bit more unforgiving than the others but never allowing an easy experience for you to dip your toes into and gather your bearings. Adjusting the weather gives a completely different feel to these stages, allowing you to alter your experience and give different forms of life to an existing stage.
AC: Rally is not a game for everyone to just pick up and play and be good at; the difficulty involved in AC: Rally is not very average-consumer friendly. As you would imagine, it takes a lot of time and practice to be proficient in a style of racing so difficult and fast-paced. This may be a bit of a turnoff for some people who don’t have an expensive setup or a lot of time to focus on learning a game; it surely isn’t the easiest form of entry-level simulation. If you aren’t afraid of a challenge, however, you can spend hours dialing in your times or even learning a new vehicle. There is gamepad support, but I have no personal experience trying it, but based on my previous gamepad experience with other Assetto Corsa-adjacent titles, it’s not really much to desire, but of course my opinion is based on choosing to use my wheel setup instead.
AC: Rally is absolutely stunning visually, of course built in the ever-evolving Unreal Engine 5, which has been very hit or miss with its performance. Sadly, I didn’t get to experience all these beautiful visuals for long, as I had to drastically lower the settings in AC: Rally to try and improve my overall experience. Even with my 3080, I was getting under 60 fps on medium settings, making it inconsistent and at times giving a sloppy and unresponsive feel to my inputs. It’s definitely very unfortunate that games are so beautiful but unoptimized to the point of having to be run at their lowest settings for an acceptable gameplay experience. I do hope they push to fix optimization quickly because without a high-power and expensive PC, your experience may not be up to par with what you deem acceptable. However, if you are able to play it at higher settings, you feel so immersed and in awe at the beauty and detail in every small thing. The stages are full of life, and the vehicles are full of character and high-quality textures and materials, producing some of the nicest interiors I’ve experienced in a simulator yet.
With the early access launch there is currently:
• Assetto Corsa Rally Events with online leaderboards
• Free Practice
• Rally Weekend
• Single Rally Stage
• Time Attack with online leaderboards
I tend to spend a majority of my time just in the free practice driving and learning the stages, but with enough time and practice the online leaderboards will be your only real multiplayer feature at this time for you to compete in and show off what you have learned. Each mode is fairly self-explanatory and pretty much what you would expect for a rally game, minus no real story mode, which is currently not mentioned as a future feature.
I mentioned at the beginning I wouldn’t base my review on the early bugs experienced, but I want to at least make sure it’s discussed now in case they are not fixed by the time of release. My current shifter setup (Turtle Beach Velocity One) in either sequential mode or H-pattern was just flat out glitchy, either endlessly shifting on its own when trying to shift a gear or, in H-pattern, switching between the gear I’m in and neutral; basically making it impossible to play. I did find a temporary solution by adding the maximum amount of delay in the settings for the shifting, which did work better, but overall it was not the best experience I would ever recommend. Of course, I mentioned the performance, which in my opinion is one of my largest complaints because low fps makes the response slow, and turning on frame gen just added more unnecessary latency that was very noticeable. My USB handbrake was also unconfigurable, even though it worked natively in past Assetto Corsa games with no issues, so playing without a handbrake was a challenge, but I would assume that is an easy fix and shouldn’t be an issue with launch. One last problem I had was there just didn’t seem to be a lot of adjustability with the wheel settings; the force feedback slider was a bit inconsistent. Some changes felt almost identical, but when it changed, it felt aggressive.
AC: Rally is a walk in the right direction, and I look forward to seeing the content made for it. Especially being a rally enthusiast, I feel a bit more passionate for the details of the sport. Although I feel as if AC: Rally in its current state is more like a tech demo to show you what it COULD be, I still appreciate all the love and passion being put into AC: Rally. I’m going to recommend AC: Rally the same way I did with AC: Evo; you’re not buying a finished game but instead investing in the future of the product. To some, that’s not enough to justify the purchase, and that’s totally understandable, but if you plan on buying it and have any interest, then support the developers and offer your feedback. Our voices during these times are meant to support and help the development process, especially in the infancy stages.
AC: Rally in its current state is a 6/10; the love and passion is there, now it’s about producing the best product possible as consistently and effectively as in a realistic time frame. I absolutely love and support the teams involved, and a lot of you, I’m sure, do as well.
