Review: Dirt 5

On the old DIRT road!

Title: Dirt 5
Platform: PC, Stadia, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 (reviewed)
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters
Release date: November 6th
Tl;dr: A fun dirt rally racer that is gorgeous and very dirty at the same time.
Price: Â£55/$60
Family Focus?: Click here for more information

When it comes to games, my go-to genre is Japanese RPGs. I love the over the top character designs, the ridiculous storylines and the incredible battle systems. However, this doesn’t mean, I am completely opposed to other genres, I generally have a soft spot for racing games. Much like Jon Snow, I know nothing about cars other than they take me from A to B or let me drive real fast in a racing game. My love of racing games started back with Destruction Derby on the original PlayStation and gradually grew until I played Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) which is still one of my favourite racers to this day.

Before reviewing Dirt 5, I hadn’t really experienced any of the other entries, with the exception of playing split-screen at a mates house. So what did I think of Dirt 5? I’m just going to come out say it, I loved it and in fact, I’m still loving it. It just feels so great, it looks great and it runs great! Dirt 5 has multiple modes for you to enjoy from the Career mode, Online play, Arcade and the Playgrounds mode which allows you to play or build custom-built tracks or events.

Let’s talk about the career mode in Dirt 5, you play as yourself, a driver with a taste for speed and the exhilaration of the race, as you win race after race, you catch the eye of a guy known as AJ, who is voiced by Troy Baker (Joel – Last of Us.) The guy is a superstar and favourite in the world of Dirt, so AJ takes you under his wing, giving you pointers to make you the next Dirt superstar! However, you’re not the only fresh face making a name for yourself. Bruno Durand, the cold, calculating and insanely competitive type, he is voiced by Nolan North (Nathan Drake – Uncharted series.) The career mode is spread over five chapters as you make your way to the top with Bruno closer and closer.

Another game-mode, I’d love to talk about is Playgrounds Mode. This mode allows you to go wild and create your own little races or events for your friends or random people online to compete in. Or if you suck at creating your own racecourses like myself, you can browse other peoples creations and thankfully people had already uploaded some content by the time, I got my hands on a copy. Someone created Super Mario Kart’s famed Rainbow Road and it is as punishing as the original.

Graphically, Dirt 5 is stunning from the sun-soaked statue Jesus towering in the distance of Rio de Janeiro, the Northern Lights of Norway or the beautiful rustic archways littered with bamboo in China. Dirt 5 manages to make them all look gorgeous whether it be night or day, rain or shine, the game glows and if you have a TV with HDR enabled the colours just pop, especially the Northern Lights!

Unfortunately, I must bring up a few negatives but these are more of me being a bit a snob but the game experiences screen tearing especially when you take sharp corners. Plus, the game has occasionally pop in with textures and shadows, now I know these things are somewhat to be expected as we transition to the next console generation but it, unfortunately, irritated me a bit, the screen tearing mostly as it gets a tad distracting.

Overall, Dirt 5 is a fun game with a bunch of content to keep your interest piqued between the lengthy career mode and the exciting Playgrounds mode whether you’re a creator or a player of what I’m sure will be a massive catalogue of content in the coming months after release. As I mentioned previously, Dirt 5 has some technical issues on PS4 Pro, but if you purchase it now, you can upgrade your copy to a PS5 version for free and I believe it’s the same on Xbox by Smart Delivery.