It looks like the license to be the official video game for the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) will be jumping back to Codemasters, having acquired an exclusive five-year deal.
The deal, from 2023 to 2027, will see Codies make annual releases of the WRC games for console, PC and mobile. This also includes the handling official esports tournaments for the WRC.
The WRC license is currently held by Nacon. They will publish this year’s WRC 9 (developed by KT Racing), with WRC 10 and 11 already confirmed for 2021 and 2022 respectively. After that, the baton will be passed back to Codies.
Codemasters used to have the WRC license back in the Colin McRae Rally 3 in 2002. Since then, various other developers including Evolution Studios (which remnants of it is now part of Codemasters) and Milestone have had a go with making official WRC rally games.
Codemasters now has two teams that handle off-road racing games. The former Evolution Studios team in Cheshire are now making Dirt 5. Most likely the Dirt Rally team will be making use of the new WRC license. Currently, the Dirt Rally series already have the official license of the FIA World Rallycross Championship.