With the next entry in the WRC game series just around the corner, Nacon has revealed some details about a special pre-order bonus: Colin McRae’s 1997 Subaru Impreza.
WRC 10 will launch next month and be the official game of the World Rally Championship through into most of 2022. That will be the 50th running of the WRC since its inception in 1973, and WRC 10 will very much lean into this golden anniversary.
In total, the game will feature over 20 events at historic rallies, featuring events at Argentina, Greece, Kenya, Monte Carlo, Spain, and Sweden at launch, and more to follow. Players will drive cars from across five eras of the WRC as they “relive the most legendary moments of the WRC”.
However one of those moments is available only to players who pre-order the title — or pick it up in the first two weeks on PC. It features Colin McRae’s victory in the 1997 Rally Sanremo.
McRae and co-driver Nicky Grist won the event by just six seconds from team-mates Piero Liatti and Pons Fabrizia in controversial fashion, after Subaru staged team orders to allow McRae to cut into Tommi Makinen’s championship lead. The tactic came to nothing in the end as, despite being the first of three successive victories to close out the season, McRae lost out by a single point to his Finnish rival.
It’s an unusual event to choose, but certainly a moment of infamy in a long history of the WRC. 1997 was also the first year that the Sanremo event, just along the Mediterranean coast from Monaco and the Rally Monte Carlo, was entirely set on asphalt.
There are plenty of other historic events available for players who don’t pre-order, with legends like Ari Vatanen, Petter Solberg, Walter Rohrl, and Marcus Gronholm celebrated. The historic events even cover more recent drivers like Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier, who’ve won 15 of the last 16 championships between them.
WRC 10 is available to pre-order now, and will launch on September 2 on PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series, and PC. A Nintendo Switch version will follow at an as-yet unannounced date.
I pre ordered the physical copy. Still not clear.
The lighting looks off
Please correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I remember the tarmac spec of that Impreza had a way bigger wheel diameter and a much lower tire profile. It looks kind of weird in the video with the wheel dimensions it has. I might sound like an old man, but hey – it’s 2021 and even smaller game developers have achieved such details spot-on. It shouldn’t be too hard.
If I remember correctly you could buy the WRC9 pre-order cars individually afterwards.
For console players does that “pre-order” requirement only apply to digital sales, or if I pre-order a physical copy will I also get the Impreza?
I believe it only applies to digital sales. Completely unfair if like me you prefer the physical edition.
A bold move, making such an iconic car a pre-order bonus. Reminds me of how for Need for Speed (2015), the pre-order bonus was the BMW M3 (E46) GTR from Most Wanted (2005).
True, though in 2015’s case you could also (and can still, I believe) buy the Delxue Edition which includes all the pre-order bonuses. Hopefully WRC follows a similar route.