There has been a lot of talk about DiRT Rally, but besides the Steam Early Access, there isn't much talk about the actual release date of the game itself. That is, when it will be coming to the PS4 and Xbox One. This everything known about DiRT Rally Release Date for the PS4, Xbox One, and its formal release.
Here is a recent update from Video Gamer. By recent, it is actually a few months old, back when the game was first released for Steam Early Access back on April 27, 2015. At that time, it stated that Codemasters currently "penciled in" a full launch for November or December, but that has been subject to change. Considering that we're nearing the end of September, one would think that release date would have more of a formal announcement by now.
The official website of the game is also not really much of a help as far as getting a formal release date either. The team developing the game has a Timeline that shows that they have visited some tracks in Finland for this month, creating a whole new class of car to master in October, and then developing a whole new environment to master in November with Winter Wonderland for November.
Nothing seems to be planned as far as December is concerned, but if Codemasters wants to get this game out on consoles before the holiday season, that is the deadline. If I had to make an estimation, it sounds like DiRT Rally will be fully complete and not available for Early Access at the end of the year, so perhaps 2016 will be the time when the game makes the leap to console. However, if I were Codemasters, I'd have a console version ready before holiday 2015, but that could be a taller order than I think.
According to the DiRT Rally site on Codemasters, makers of this automotive game, the player can "hurtle along dangerous, undulating roads at breakneck speed, aiming to squeeze everything out of your car whilst knowing that one crash could irreparably harm your stage time". It also describes the game as "ultimate" as in "ultimate test of a driver's skill" and "ultimate in high risk".
Yes, this isn't your ordinary racing track with paved roads and one oval shape. This is different types of surfaces that the driver has to adapt to very quickly, not to mention different weather patterns. There are various stages that you have to take your rally team through, and there are time-limited repairs between each stage. Check out a video of the action on YouTube.
DiRT Rally is available in Early Access, which means that those to sign on will have free updates including new locations, new game modes, and vehicles. Codemasters sees the community of DiRT Rally drivers as their co-driver and want to shape the game around their feedback.
DiRT Rally offers five massive new real-world rally locations and fifty challenging stages, with more being added on soon. It is possible to drive them during the day in dry, overcast, sunny, misty, wet, rainy, and snowy conditions, which all make the experience of going off-road very intense. There are 25 cars with over 7 new and classic classes to drive now. The courses are located all over the world in Pikes Peak (USA), Powys (Wales), Monte Carlo (Monaco), Argolis (Greece), and Baumholder (Germany), which was just added last June.
The Early Access program will supposedly run until the end of 2015, and then a full version will be released. At this writing, the game is available on Steam for a price of $45.99. The price will increase throughout the Early Access program, and again after Early access to "reflect the state of the game", and as of July, the price has risen by about eight dollars.
In other words, the price of the game is probably going to go up as it develops, but if the player wants to pay for it right now, all of the downloadable content (DLC) will be for free. Perhaps this game will not have a formal release date, and this is an experiment of Codemasters to make the best game possible and really listen to the audience and not the people who put games on shelves. They could be taking their sweet time to make a game for the consoles, but if it is really worth playing, perhaps it is worth the delay.
