Dakar Desert Rally, coming in 2022

[jztemple2]

Rather than adding to the existing Dakar 18 thread, I thought I'd post this information in a new thread for folks who might be interested in Dakar Rally games... if there are any besides me of course

Announced today by Saber Interactive, the folks who brought you Dakar 18, is Dakar Desert Rally, which will release in 2022. You can wishlist it on Steam. First, the trailer:



Now, the details:

Introducing DAKAR DESERT RALLY. Dare to drive in the most massive open-world rally racer ever. Extreme open-world environments, realistic physics, and authentic vehicles from the legendary Dakar rally. Coming 2022! http://dakarthegame.com

Coming in 2022 to PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation®4, Xbox One, and PC. This next-generation racer features true off-road rally action from the official 2020-2021 Dakar raids with authentic vehicles, realistic physics, community creator options, and dynamic seasons and weather.

Developed by Saber Porto, Dakar Desert Rally captures the genuine speed and excitement of Amaury Sport Organisation’s largest rally race on the planet, featuring a wide variety of licensed vehicles from the world’s top makers, including motorcycles, cars, trucks, quads, and SSVs. The game offers unique challenges for off-road simulation diehards and casual racing fans alike: compete in fierce online multiplayer races or navigate the vast wilds in single-player offline. Wishlist today! http://dakarthegame.com

The Authentic Dakar Rally Experience: Over 30 stages of full rally racing from the official 2020 and 2021 Dakar Rally races with officially licensed vehicles, teams, and pilots across multiplayer and single-player modes.

Immense Open World: Compete at high speeds across extreme and vast open-world environments of Saudi Arabia.

Dynamic Seasons & Weather: Dakar Desert Rally features all four seasons and a full day-night cycle. Whether facing billowing sandstorms, blazing desert sunlight, grueling rain, and snow, or deep mud, you’ll need to overcome the elements and your competition to win.

Rescue & Repair: In true Dakar fashion, you can tow and rescue a competitor out of a jam for extra repair points. Who knows -- you might need the favor returned down the road.

[Daehawk]

Thats screams MMO

[jztemple2]

Dakar Desert Rally will be released (hopefully) on October 4th, 2022.

[jztemple2]

New gameplay trailer. The game is going far beyond just recreating the Dakar Rally. There will be an entire open world where events can be held, with climates from wetlands to snowy mountains. And you'll be able to create your own rally stages.

[Daehawk]

Multiplayer is a good part of it I hope. Had lots of fun in the old days with Monster Truck Madness and Motorcross Madness.

[jztemple2]

From PCGamesN, a preview look: Dakar Desert Rally is a survival racing game about not getting lost

Much like any other racing game, players will need to beat the competition while staying on course by passing through different beacons. The difference here is that you can get to those beacons in any way that suits you: veer into the sands or stick to the path – the decision is yours; just watch out for the trees and boulders.

Until I brush up my skills you’ll find me zooming around in the much more forgiving, casual-minded ‘sport’ mode, but there are two others; professional and simulation. We take a look at the latter, which is the hardcore option for avid simulation game enthusiasts. Here, you need to navigate the open-world circuit in the same way actual race drivers do: by using a compass, a roadbook of markers to watch out for, and those rusty orientation skills you learned at that one outdoor school trip.

This is what makes the Dakar series really feel unique – rally games have implemented pace notes for years, but in Dakar it’s ridiculously easy to take a wrong turn and not realise until your wheels are spinning up in deep sand. Following these while flooring the throttle also forces you to concentrate on every minute detail ahead of you, not just how fast you’re going. A humble boulder can be the geographical marker that keeps me true, and the roadbook lists diagrams, cautions, section distances, and so, so much more for me to interpret while I battle to keep the car doing a 180. From the outside it looks like a fairly pedestrian dash across some sand dunes, but in the cockpit your eyes are zipping around like your life depends on it.

Yes, that last sentence sounds foreboding, but it's part of what makes rally raids so much fun

Not only is Dakar daring, it’s gorgeous (and sometimes frightening) to look at – and there’s a lot to explore. To be exact, there are 20,000 square metres [metres?] of desert to tear through, with everything scaled 1:25 based on the real-life area. This makes Desert Rally the largest rally sandbox game around. It also boasts an extensive roster of vehicles (over 150, to be precise); with everything from motorbikes to trucks at your disposal. Inspired by the 2020 to 2022 events (the last Dakar game came out in 2018), you can take pretty much every vehicle for a spin.

OK, so I looked it up, the map is not 20,000 square meters (which would be about the size of two soccer pitches side by side ) but instead it is 20,000 square kilometers, which is about 7,700 square miles. That's about half-way between the sizes of Connecticut and New Jersey. In gaming terms, for those who played the game Fuel (sadly, no longer available for purchase on Steam), the map of Dakar Desert Rally is 50% larger than that of Fuel

[jztemple2]

OK, so I looked it up, the map is not 20,000 square meters (which would be about the size of two soccer pitches side by side ) but instead it is 20,000 square kilometers, which is about 7,700 square miles. That's about half-way between the sizes of Connecticut and New Jersey. In gaming terms, for those who played the game Fuel (sadly, no longer available for purchase on Steam), the map of Dakar Desert Rally is 50% larger than that of Fuel

Since the game isn't out for almost another month I thought I'd continue on the comparison to the game Fuel.

This is a look at the Fuel map at 2044 × 2048. If you expand the image and look close, you'll see a spider web of white lines. Those are the paved roads.


So how big is that Fuel map? It is 120km x 120km, or about 72 miles on each side. That means the diagonal is about 100 miles. In this video, the host is driving that diagonal, from SE to NW. It takes him about two hours.



The Dakar Desert Rally map is 140 km x 140 km. That means the diagonal is about 200 km, or 120 miles. So a diagonal speed run there will probably be closer to 2.4 hours . That's in real time

And here is a preview of the game with lots of in-game footage.

[jztemple2]

Ha, you guys thought I had abandoned this thread! But no, the game releases in a couple of hours but I have to go to bed so no first impressions until sometime tomorrow. However, while I am taking the bullet for the rest of you who are planning to buy this game ("Bueller? Bueller?") I would caution folks that on the day before release the developers have (suddenly?) announced that certain features which were touted as being in the game at release will now be delayed:


It's not a deal breaker for me, as I only really follow four sports (America's Cup, Formula 1, Indycar and the Dakar Rally) and since this pretty much the only game in town for the latter, I'll still be getting it. But it is buyer beware for now.

[Kasey Chang]

Technically, Saber Interactive BOUGHT Bigmoon Entertainment that developed Dakar 18, renaming it Saber Porto. So Saber became the publisher of the game.

[jztemple2]

After two hours I was ready to rage quit and get a refund, but since I was just over the two hour mark it was too late. However, I'm up to five hours now and enjoying it much more. There are a lot of negative review on Steam but most of those are from people who gave it an hour or so and posted a review. It really does take time to get used to how the vehicles drive, how navigation works and learning the progression system.

My observations and suggestions:
- You really should have a gamepad for the bikes and the quads. And you should have a wheel+pedals for the cars, trucks and side-by-sides (sort of a bigger ATV). You can play it the other way round but you'll get frustrated.
- There are a number of wheels right now that aren't supported. They will be added with updates according to the devs.
- For the first ten hours or so there are only two modes, Sport and Professional. Sport is arcade like in that all the race participants start off together and so you get a lot of bumping and banging and many times someone gets spun out. It's basically NASCAR in the desert . However, the field starts getting spread out and at that point it's a more enjoyable race. And there are waypoints but you still have to pay attention to the navigation icons at the top so you start pointing at the next waypoint right away.
- Professional is more like an actually rally. You get released by time so you'll be by yourself a lot. There aren't waypoint markers but you have a roadbook to guide you. If you are in a vehicle with a navigator next to you you'll get a continuous stream of directions. On a bike or quad you do your own navigating but it isn't as hard as it sounds.
- To start off, use a bike with a gamepad. It is easier to maneuver.
- You can test drive any vehicle you don't already own, and since the test drive is for an unlimited amount of time it is a good way to practice. Also, as you build up XP the gates of the initial test drive arena open up and you have access to more terrain.

And even though you are in Saudi Arabia, there are snow stages. With blizzards

[jztemple2]

I've updated my review which is in the spoiler tags below. I'm really enjoying the game.

Spoiler:

Update after 17.5 hours played
I'm not sure if folks are going to come back to this review, but I thought I'd post a few more impressions just in case. I've reached level 22 in the game.

First, I've tweaked the game settings for my X360 controller a bit and with a little tweaking of the quad set ups, I'm doing very nicely racing the quads now. In fact I'm now winning events in the Sport mode so I can collect those reward vehicles. Racing the quad needs finesse on the controls but if a sixty-nine year old(!) can figure out how to do it, other folks can too.

Second, I've done more events in the Professional mode. There are issues with the navigator shouting out the wrong instructions or repeatedly telling me I'm on the wrong CAP, but I just ignore those. Between the roadbook, the kilometer counter and the CAP, and looking for other competitors or the camera helos I've managed to do pretty well, in fact today I finished first in the Tabuk 2021 event with the Audi e-tron. Overall time was fifty-four minutes and it was quite an experience. I did have to restart a few times when I just got flustered at the beginning, but overall it was a lot of fun.

Update after ten hours played
Just wanted to add this update as I've spent more time playing in Professional mode (Pro mode). This is not going to be easy for folks who haven't played rally games with navigation before and even if you have, expect to make a lot of mistakes till you get used to the system used by this game. Because the length of the stages have been compressed in the game, to make them more manageable for players of different skills, you'll often be hitting new waypoints just tens of seconds apart. And because the game only flags you as you pass certain waypoints, you'll have to manually advance your roadbook to keep up. And that's while driving, checking mileage, heading and looking out for boulders, etc.

Not to say that this is bad, just as a heads up for those who might just want to jump directly into Pro mode. You really ought to check out Sport mode first for awhile just to get a feel for the game.

Also, I saw in someone else's review that they can't turn off the music. To do that, under Options/Audio, you need to move the sliders to both "Music" and "Playlist" fully to the left. Works for me.

Original Review
I've got in just over eight hours on the game. I've done a number of rallies in Sport mode and three in Pro mode. People have been talking about Sport mode as be the "arcade" or "easy" mode but it's not. The navigation is assisted but the stages are pretty tough. Admittedly they aren't what you would see in a real Dakar Rally stage, what with the snowstorms and everything, but they are fun and challenging. Of course the stages start with all class competitors leaving at the same time so it's a bit like NASCAR in the desert, but again fun and challenging.

Pro mode is more like Dakar 18, you need to use the road book and pay more attention to navigation. The rally stages I saw were more like the actually Dakar stages and with less "arcade" like elements. If you enjoyed the stages in Dakar 18 you'll find Pro mode to your liking.

The graphics are excellent. I'm running an RTX 3080, i9-10850K and 32GB RAM with Windows 10. I'm running at 2560x1440 without any stutter at 60 fps. And I'm only using an X360 controller for the bikes, all others I'm using a G920 wheel/pedal. The controller doesn't work well for me with the quads, but the wheel does. For the G920 the only change I made in the game settings is to turn force feedback down from 60% to 40%. Make *sure* you run the in-game calibration routine.

The game world for the stages of the rallies is outstanding. Kudos to the devs for stepping up to making a full open world rather than canned stages. And also more kudos with taking liberties with the real Saudi Arabian peninsula by adding ship wrecks on shore, airplanes you can jump off and other fun elements. Again, not truly realistic but it makes the rallies more fun. And a bit more kudos for the blizzards and lightning storms.

The servicing of the vehicles is more simplified than some rally games, but it doesn't really take away from the enjoyment of the game. For those who remember DiRT 4 with its many upgrades for parts, that was a game in itself but would be overkill in this game. You do pay a penalty in Dakar Points (one of the two "currencies" in the game) if you bang up you vehicle but it isn't too burdensome.

The five vehicle classes are very nicely differentiated from each other in terms of handling. The bikes handle better than in Dakar 18, although I still haven't found the sweet spot for the settings on the controller menu for it. Everything else I drive with the G920 and it feels really good. The giant trucks feel like giant ungainly trucks, the SxS are nimble, the cars are fast and easy to overdrive if you don't pay attention. The quads still give me trouble, but watching the coverage of the real Dakar you know that they give their riders a hard time as well.

In eight hours I've had only one crash which didn't repeat. Navigation of the menus is straightforward and there are lots of settings to tweak. You can change the key bindings on the keyboard, controller and wheel/pedal which is good. There are plenty of graphics options to play around with. I play with music off and the engine and environment sounds are good.

It is a disappointment that some features that were supposed to be available on initial release are now to be released downstream, but there is enough good content in the game right now for me. I'm hoping that the devs don't get too discouraged with the flurry of early negative reviews, I think that too many people just put in too little time and rushed to judgement. Dakar Desert Rally has lived up to my expectations, assuming the roadmap items get released in a timely manner.

[jztemple2]

Finally hit level 25:


What this means is I've reached Simulation Mode, or as I call it, Masochist Mode


Still really having fun with the game. I've switching between the controller for the bike and quad and the wheel/pedal for the SxS, car and truck. I had one lock-up back at the four hour mark and everything has been fine since then. My experience is a lot like when I got Cyberpunk 2077; everybody was trashing the game, but with the right rig, some tweaks and most especially patience I'm really enjoying the game. When you look at the negative Steam reviews, see how many were posted with only a few or even a couple of hours of gameplay. Patience is the key.

Hey, anyone reading this?

[jztemple2]

Very helpful guide to reading a roadbook

[jztemple2]

Probably no one here will read it , but I've put together a Steam Guide for the game:

Dakar Desert Rally Tips and Advice

Some tips and advice for those who might be unsure of how to play the game, or how to play it well.

[jztemple2]

Don't know if there is anyone but me playing this game, but I thought I'd mention that the devs have released the November 28, 2023 - Fall Update Patch Notes reflecting the new update just released today. There is a lot of free content, including some vehicles that were originally only for season pass purchasers, but since this update is about a year overdue, the free stuff is a sort of peace offering. Since I have the season pass, I've been enjoying some of that content already.

The major content includes hybrid vehicles, another set of classic vehicles, and several vehicles you'll recognize if you have played SnowRunner, which is from the same publisher. There also now a replay and photo mode, for those who care about that. But for me the biggest new addition by far is the Roadbook Editor. What this does is allows the player to create custom stages and group them together into custom events. I've been trying it out and have uploaded my first custom event (which consists of just one stage). The editor works really well and kudos to the devs for making it straightforward to use and just as importantly, to include an in-game system to browse the community uploads rather than needed Steam Workshop or mod.io access. When you play a custom event, at the end you have the opportunity to rate the event from a half-star to five stars and the average is shown in the browser so you can get an idea of whether it's junk or worth playing.

I'm a real enthusiast for race creators since back in the SODA Offroad Racing game days. I've made events in the latest Forza Horizon and even GTAV, so having this Roadbook Editor is appealing to me.

[dbt1949]

With it being on sale and the fact I have cable internet now I've decided to give this one a try despite all the negative reviews. Still downloading it. But, jztemple2, your reputation in on the line.

[jztemple2]

With it being on sale and the fact I have cable internet now I've decided to give this one a try despite all the negative reviews. Still downloading it. But, jztemple2, your reputation in on the line.

My reputation is impeccable. I would never allow it to be peccable .

[jztemple2]

I've uploaded two events made using the Roadbook Editor. You can find them by going from the Main Menu -> Free Mode -> Custom Play -> (whatever vehicle type you want) -> Game Mode -> Professional -> Community Browser. It is less complicated than it sounds . In the community browser you can scroll down through the list and see the (right now) two that are authored by me. I'm rather pleased that the community has given my events an average of 4.5/5 stars as I am really trying to make quality events.

[jztemple2]

This is a short video I took as my AI Kamaz driver raced across the terrain while validating a custom stage I'm creating. Do I drive this badly?

[dbt1949]

To my eyes that is such a strange vehicle for a rally.

[Kasey Chang]

That's because you're used to the WRC, and not the Dakar style rally.