


I adjusted steering, braking, acceleration, my co-driver’s direction timings and driving views for two hours, alongside the obligatory pre-race garage edits. I don’t think I’ve ever changed my settings on a racing game as much as I have on WRC 8. Even with re-runs, you’ll find yourself pinging off your surroundings more than you do in Yoku’s Island Express. The car can lock up way too easily the deadzone is way out the steering sensitivity feels off. Playing it on standard settings, you’ll likely find little joy in your first few races, using your allotted restarts after binning your car into a pole or bystander. If you’ve only got a controller, you’ll need to start tinkering from the ground up, across the board. Out of the box and with standard settings, WRC 8 is a twitchy, unforgiving mess reminiscent of Project Cars’ console outing: a game that’s designed for a steering wheel peripheral. It’s after the following first rally that you’ll likely realize it is.
