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Bright colours, stylish low-poly graphics and a whole lot of speed is what's coming our way with art of rally. From the same developer behind Absolute Drift and it's coming to Linux this year.

Already confirmed to be releasing on Steam, and we've previously written about art of rally so it's not a new announcement. However, we do now know it will also release on GOG in addition to Steam. Oh, and it got a seriously flashy new trailer to really show off across multiple different locations:

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It might not be as serious as something like DiRT Rally, however it's still based on some realism and it will be quite a challenging game. The developer mentioned they overhauled the handling compared to Absolute Drift, so it will be less punishing and it will have driving assists too so more people can enjoy it.

Feature Highlight:

  • Progress through the golden years of rally in Career Mode
  • 50+ iconic rally cars from the 60s, 70s, 80s, Group B, Group S, Group A
  • Completely overhauled handling from the car physics system of Absolute Drift
  • 60 rally stages in Finland, Sardinia, Norway, Japan and Germany
  • Repair performance damage between stages
  • Daily and weekly challenges with leaderboards
  • Original soundtrack by Tatreal

Want to try an early build? There's still an older demo up on itch.io you can try. From what the developer said, it looks like another demo may appear on Steam during the Steam Game Festival next week from June 16 - 22, plus the developer will be doing a livestream on Wed, June 17.

You can follow it on GOG and Steam. No exact release date yet other than this year.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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13 comments

Chuckaluphagus Jun 12, 2020
Oh my, but does this look cool. I love the art style. I'll keep an eye out.
kokoko3k Jun 12, 2020
Let's hope it will be better optimized than absolute drift, quite heavy for what is presented on screen.
From the visuals, i smell Unity fingerprint, so maybe a Vulkan build can help.
(in my wishlist since months)
TobyHaynes Jun 12, 2020
Play the one level demo on Itch! It's free to try!
scaine Jun 12, 2020
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The graphics are fantastic but there isn’t even one second of gameplay in this trailer :( No idea what the game is like…

I'm a bit confused. Nearly the whole trailer is gameplay, albeit it a lot of that gameplay is then shown from cinematic effects (there's a few seconds of actual gameplay shown intermittently).

Am I missing something? Maybe the trailer was updated after this comment?

Regardless - worth trying the demo, as TobyHaynes points out! The Itch link for that is in the article.
TherinS Jun 13, 2020
The art style is such that near the very end of that trailer where the car is parked in a Japanese roadway, I half expected Samurai Jack to peek out of a window of the building or run by in the background chasing some baddie!
elmapul Jun 13, 2020
omg, that is beautyfull and its looks like an proper video game, instead of an life sim.
i love this asthetic of games like horizon chase, Drift Stage and now this one.
reminds me of the good old days when games were games.
gmaes like outrun (or topgear in case you live in brazil or other countries were outrun was unknow and topgear famous), road fighter, topgear rally 64, star wars racing, pure fun games instead of car sims =D


Last edited by elmapul on 13 June 2020 at 6:03 am UTC
dpanter Jun 13, 2020
art of rally - Teaser Trailer

The game is - you drive a car. As seen in the teaser trailer. The game looks exactly like is shown, noting that the editing and cinematic camera angles purposefully showcases the beautiful graphics and art style. Again, this is on purpose. You couldn't realistically play the game like that. This isn't a gameplay trailer.

The top down perspective during gameplay shouldn't be a surprise to anyone as it's similar to their previous game Absolute Drift and both games have been covered on GoL several times. In fact, the article from March 30 is even titled "Stylish top-down rally game 'art of rally'..."

As has already been mentioned, there is a demo available. You can try it out yourself. While still playable, it's a bit graphically broken on amdgpu as most trees/foliage/environmental details won't render. Yes, it's a Unity game... Windows version runs fine in Wine/DXVK.
randyl Jun 13, 2020
The drifting and sliding looks fun. The top down perspective doesn't appeal to me. I'm a fan of kart-style racers and would prefer third person "over the shoulder" directly behind the vehicle.
FT Jun 13, 2020
Looks great but is it really top-down only? I find it hard to believe they would shoot themselves in the foot like that, it may just be a camera option.
whizse Jun 13, 2020
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I think the camera position pretty much needs to be top down for you to see enough of the road and plan ahead. You are both driver and co-driver.

There are no co-driver instructions or even corner markers - because, by Casu's own admission, it's too much work when you consider localisation further down the line.

From https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-10-18-art-of-rally-is-rally-done-artfully
dpanter Jun 14, 2020
From funselektors Discord #faq, posted May 21 2020.

Official dev statement on cameras:

"This game is designed around a higher camera and a traditional chase camera would require pacenotes which are a large feature and hard to get right (plus voice acting for all supported languages would be very expensive).

The rally stages have good length, but from playing the game enough you will remember the stages and the high camera means you can see what's coming in the stage and negates the need for pacenotes."
randyl Jun 14, 2020
It is considerate of them to explain their design and it makes sense. AoR looks terrific and meaty. While the interface and perspective may not be for me personally, it looks like it delivers.
gustavoyaraujo Jun 15, 2020
I have to say this: every single racing game in the universe should have a LAN mode.
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