WRC 10 Switch Impressions

Back in September 2021, Seth Roy took a look at WRC 10 on the Xbox Series X, and came away really impressed with what the game did on next generation hardware. You can read his full review here. In this article, we are going to look at the Nintendo Switch port of the game, and see how it holds up. If you want to see our thoughts on game modes and more, be sure to read through Seth’s review. OK, onto the Switch!

Before we hop into the Switch discussion, I thought I would copy one of Seth’s glowing opinions on the game,

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the most competitive driver. My co-driver, a lovely English gal, frequently sounds exasperated and like she’s not quite enjoying all the bumps and bashes along the course. By the end of a run, my car is frequently beat up. I love the strategy of deciding what to repair between stages, and you can really tell the difference between a car that is 100% and one that has had some wear-and-tear.

On that front, I can say the same strategic decision making carries over – in fact, much of how the gameplay works is identical between the Switch and Xbox version of the game. In Career mode, you will work from your base of operations, but this is where our first negative comes to light. While framerate throughout the races is locked to a stead 30 fps, things are not as clean as you prepare your cars for races. This wouldn’t be too game breaking in most situations, but since you do spend so much time preparing, it can become quite a nusaince.

I commend the development team for the quality and realism of the game – you get to drive real rally cars, on historic tracks. That’s all great, and fans of rally racing will probably find lots to enjoy. But it looks very, very bad. If you’ve seen the trailers for the game, don’t be fooled – you are likely looking at the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 version of the game. On Switch, it’s a much different story. Textures are off. Lighting is off. It’s just not right, and while I was able to get past it, it’s going to bother people.

Everything else, though, is rather impressive. Cars feel good to drive, and with a host of accessability options – literally the ability to re-map almost anything, as well as being able to change difficult on the fly between races. Racing games far too often come across as experiences only for skilled racing fans, but the team behind WRC really are trying to make this work for as many people as possible. So even if your driving skills are sub-part like mine, there is still a reason to grab this and go.

I’ve spoken at length about how I prefer to own games on my Nintendo Switch, even if there is a slight graphical downgrade. While I would consider the downgrade in the look of WRC 10 pretty substantial compared to it’s next generation counterparts, that’s not what is keeping me from coming back for hours upon hours. In fact, nothing is stopping me from coming back. The frame rate issues in the career mode menus and at your HQ are a bit frustrating, but not game breaking. WRC isn’t a perfect title, but one I will come back to casually because there is just too much content here to not explore it all!