Interview: DiRT Rally's Paul Coleman

Today, we have a big treat for fans of DiRT Rally and Codemasters. We interviewed Paul Coleman, Chief Games Designer for Codemasters who's behind DiRT Rally, regarding the Early Access racing hit. So far, delving into the world of DiRT Rally has been an amazing experience for us, and I expect the experience and synergy between Codemasters and its fans to continue to grow immensely over the oncoming months. So without further ado, here is our interview:

GZU: What inspired the decision to make DiRT Rally an Early Access Release?

Paul: It's all about listening to the fans and acting on their feedback. We have been prototyping the new physics simulation for a while now, but we needed to get the game into the hands of our fans to move things forward.



GZU: What other locations are you considering to include?

Paul: We've got Pikes Peak coming soon with our new Hillclimb race discipline and then we are bringing a new rally location - Germany. We've got some awesome Rallycross circuits lined up before we introduce another couple of rally locations, including Finland.

GZU: So far, what have you considered from the community suggestions you've received?

Paul: We are considering everything, but there are some things that we are acting on as soon as possible. I think one of the key issues that fans have picked up on is our Force Feedback not feeling right. To be honest, we'd not looked into this system as much as we had with other aspects of the game, but with the help of community members, we are completely rewriting the feature to bring it up to the level that the fans expect.



GZU:  What is your favorite car in DiRT Rally? Stage?

Paul: My favorite car in real life is the Lancia Delta HF Integrale, but I have to say that for sheer driving pleasure in DiRT Rally I adore the FIAT 131 Abarth. As for the stages, I love them all, but if you are forcing me to pick one then I'd have to say Bronfelen in Wales. It really rewards commitment so you definitely get an amazing sense of achievement when you nail a good run.

GZU: Do you plan on tweaking the damage system? What other tweaks are in the works?

Paul: Everything is open to being tweaked, and there are a number of things we are looking into. We are still finding new things to improve in the physics engine and the stuff that we have worked on for the Hillclimb cars will need to be rolled into the cars that are already available in the game. We are also tweaking some of the menu features to make things a bit clearer to new players, as well as improving the dirtgame.com website with added League configuration options.

GZU: Someone on Steam mentioned DiRT Rally to be "The Dark Souls of Racing." Do you personally believe that to be the case?

Paul: Hah! I heard it being said in the studio months before we released, but I personally don't believe it to be the case. We didn't set out to make a game that deliberately kicked your ass. We set out to make a game that was the most accurate representation of what it is like to drive off-road. I appreciate the sentiment, but ultimately I wouldn't want people to think that we had deliberately set out to make the game feel unfair. Everything we have done has been to make the experience as true to the sport as possible.

GZU: Did you expect the game to induce a lot of stress?

Paul: We knew it was more stressful than other games we have made, but ultimately it's all about managing the stress and keeping things calm to get the maximum out of the car. You often hear about rally drivers not always driving to 100% and keeping things a bit more measured, and that is definitely the case with DiRT Rally. Over the course of an event, it is more important to keep the car in a good condition and not lose time going off the road, than it is to try and set a stage record every run.



GZU: I'm surprised at the difficulty of this game. I've not once made it to first place in DiRT Rally. In fact, third place is the highest rank I've been in a championship. Do you plan to ease the difficulty? Personally, I hope not.

Paul: I've been pretty surprised by the fan's acceptance of the fact that the game is challenging and that the AI times reflect that. We have seen people beating them and we have ensured that the spread of times in an event means that you aren't finishing last if you aren't getting the times our best drivers are capable of. It's something we are going to keep an eye on and we have always planned to reflect the spread of community times in the AI times, but we aren't going to change things with the times without being sure that it's really necessary.

GZU: Finally, what inspired the idea for DiRT Rally?

Paul: Ive spent my entire career trying to make the best Rally game ever made, and Ive never really felt like Ive achieved that. After DiRT3, I got the opportunity to co-drive in a rally car for real in a National Championship here in the UK and that experience really opened my eyes to a bunch of things that we could improve upon. We knew that the fans of the series had been asking for a more in-depth experience that was more true to the sport they love, so we set about breaking down every system and rebuilding it to make sure that our prototype reflected that. When we put the prototype in peoples hands, they loved it so we turned it into something that we could get out into the open with Early Access.

And that concludes the interview. Albeit a little short, I have to say that this has been a wonderful opportunity to share with the fans. I did enjoy asking Paul these questions, but my favorite question to ask was the Dark Souls-related one. So far, DiRT Rally is coming along extremely well. Codemasters are truly listening to the community in order to provide a quality product, which leads to my belief that the team will succeed in their goal in creating the perfect rally racer that all fans, both new and old, will enjoy. Nonetheless, we highly recommend DiRT Rally, as is evident in our recent Early Access Review. Currently, you can pick up the rally racer on Steam for $34.99. It's only available for PC, but there is definitely hope for console release.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to continue to strive for first place in the championship races.

P.S. I've been to Pike's Peak, and it's absolutely gorgeous, so I am super excited to see this stage in the game.