Electronic Arts bought Codemasters in 2021, and since then the studio has been making its car games under their wings. It is common among the publisher’s studios that they often exclusively use the Frostbite engine, which has actually been proven in many games, including many car games. However, that’s not what Codemasters is preparing for the soon-to-be-released game EA Sports WRCt.
The rally game will use Unreal Engine 5, and for good reason. The development of the game started even before EA bought the company. But already at the beginning of the project, they decided to say goodbye to the self-developed EGO engine, which they had used since 2007, after many years. This was necessary because the size of the development team and the time available would not have allowed them to take their game to a new level with EGO.
The studio wanted to make much more detailed graphics, bigger tracks and generally a nicer game, but here the limits of EGO were already visible. But the Unreal Engine didn’t seem like a success at the beginning either, because the developers were definitely looking for an engine that could transfer the physics engine they had developed over the years. This is responsible for controlling the cars, which they would never want to lose.
Fortunately, the Unreal developers were helpful and together they were able to port the physics engine without any problems. So EA Sports WRC may not be powered by Frostbite. However, the graphics engine has nothing to do with the fact that the game will only be released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in addition to PC. This was the developers’ own decision, who felt that this was the only way to guarantee the visual detail they had set for themselves.