There’s a little bit of arbitrary game-y nonsense when it comes to managing bonus objectives (it’s illogical your reputation with your current manufacturer would take a hit simply for using a particular tyre compound during a rally if you’d also just won the rally) but overall it’s still a huge improvement from the entirely vanilla career experience of WRC 7. Whether you choose to apply upgrade points to improving your cash and XP awards or you opt to target strictly technical improvements is up to you.

There’s also now a large skill and tech tree, shamelessly reminiscent of the R&D system that’s been part of the F1 games for several years now, and it adds a bunch of extra layers to WRC 8’s racing career.

That said, I think the crew management is still a good addition to WRC 8, injecting a welcome team atmosphere into what had previously been a pretty lonely experience. It’s also more than a little incongruous that it’d be up to the driver to personally manage staff vacation time in the first place. For instance, while my co-driver and I spent several days slicing through Swedish tundra at speeds that would make even the sternest scrotum shrivel, my agent got so burnt out from sipping champagne and eating tiny triangle sandwiches in the hospitality tent that he needed a week off. Granted, it’s a little daft how quickly staff tend to tire considering they’re not the ones doing to the actual driving. Skilled mechanics can accomplish more repairs within the limited window at the service park between stages effective agents can wrangle invites to more exclusive one-off events and canny meteorologists can forecast further into the future, giving you an idea about potential weather changes deeper into stages.

“Specific staff now need to be hired to fill six important roles, each of whom come with gameplay benefits attached to make those decisions feel meaningful.

Wrc 8 nintendo switch download