Gaming News - November 2006

Burbank, CA (November 15, 2006) - Codemasters today revealed details on DIRT: Colin McRae Off-Road.

From Codemasters:

Featuring all the sensational realism and sublime car handling the series is renowned for, DIRT is the first title being created using studio’s new proprietary game engine, Neon. DIRT: Colin McRae Off-Road is planned to arrive spring, 2007 for the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, and PC.

Neon is the powerhouse next-gen game engine being used to build DIRT: Colin McRae Off-Road from the ground up. This new engine is the wizard behind the curtain, driving the next iteration of the Colin McRae series’ impeccable car handling, incredibly detailed vehicles and fantastic living environments. A continuous, multiplatform technical development, Neo has been in production for over 18 months with more than 30 tech experts at the helm.

Neon will ensure that DIRT’s exhilarating mix of off-road race events will be compounded into one adrenaline rush after the next, with gameplay that’s nothing but true to the series. Featuring over 40 officially licensed vehicles covering 12 car class categories, racing fans will get their fix of throwing official 2WD, 4WD, Classic and RWD cars, including Colin McRae’s prototype R4 and Travis Pastrana’s X Games-winning Subaru Impreza, around the most challenging and treacherous rally stages around the world.

“Neon provides us with so much more scope and possibilities than an update of existing tech would have ever allowed,” says Gavin Cheshire, vice president, Codemasters Studios. “The most obvious results are the visuals and physics that produce incredible particle effects. Neon makes it possible to go into seemingly minute detail, but creates the most realistic and involving environments the racing genre has seen to date.”

The increased level of detail Neon provides enables the team to model locations and environments in DIRT as accurately as possible, providing each with a unique look and feel right down to the effects of the wind. Using real-time physics to model air movements, everything will be affected by the wind: exhaust smoke, trees, foliage, trackside flags, rainfall and the vehicles themselves. A car will create an air rush wake that will have an effect on everything it passes, and will also generate a real-time slipstream.

Impact from damage will see metal crumple, glass smash into bits and pieces, and everything that you collide with in the environment will be destroyed in a realistic way. Small trees snap and bend, grass will be flattened, wood will splinter and stone will crumble, it’ll even wrap a car around a tree if the crash is serious enough.

The evolution of the world’s favorite rally game series continues with DIRT: Colin McRae Off-Road, planned to ship spring, 2007 for PLAYSTATION 3 system, Xbox 360 and PC, and currently rated “RP” (Rating Pending) by the ESRB. Sign up now for total mud splattering, gravel churning, handbrake turning, off-road racing online at www.codemasters.com/dirt.