Dakar Desert Rally Review (PS5)

Dakar Desert Rally is without a doubt one of the most anticipated game releases of the year, and many players who enjoyed Dakar 2018 expected Saber’s new title to be a hit on every single front.

Truth be told, Dakar Desert Rally comes with a very intriguing package. Race with a wide variety of vehicles, including motorcycles, cars, trucks, quads, and SSVs in the largest rally race on the planet, all while admiring the beautiful scenery and staying in permanent connection with your copilot.

Let’s start with the essential information.

If you’ve played Dakar 18, there’s no doubt you’ll find the game very familiar. In many ways, however, Dakar Desert Rally occasionally reminded me of WRC and Dirt Rally, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If you think that playing the game is easy, you’d better think again. Dakar Desert Rally is a simulation game, and pretty much every single vehicle class comes with its own challenges when it comes to being as fast as possible (or, at least, faster than your competitors).

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What I found is that controlling a motorcycle is much easier than any other vehicle class, but in general, pretty much all vehicles are very, very, very, very, very prone to understeering and oversteering. You need to apply just the right amount of braking power and learn how to master the handbrake. Otherwise, you’ll never win races, and at the end of the day, this is precisely the goal of a racing game, right?

The feedback in the DualSense controller is great. Vehicles do come with a strong feeling of weight, and in many ways, the feedback helps prevent understeering and oversteering. The developers have clearly managed to optimize the game for PlayStation 5, though I feel additional work is required in key areas such as graphics and physics.

Don’t get me wrong, physics are often close to perfect, but on the other hand, there are moments when nothing makes sense. Smashing at full speed into a rock barely produces any damage at certain points, but occasionally, you also end up losing the hood or other parts of the vehicle. There’s some lack of consistency here, but if you’re not paying too much attention to this thing, you’re probably good to go.

Despite being a racing simulation game, Dakar Desert Rally often feels incredibly fast-paced. I could barely pay attention to the copilot, so it happened on more than one occasion to miss a corner because I didn’t hear the instructions and couldn’t figure out the way to go on my own.

On the other hand, where the simulation side really plays an immense role is the race planning strategy. Dakar Desert Rally puts the player in full control of the vehicle, so you can adjust all the things that matter during a race, including the suspension system. At some level, this could make the game a little bit too complex for those who wanted just a raw racing experience, but given it’s supposed to be a simulation game, such options fit it like a glove.

The scenery is amazing, and the cameras that you can cycle through are great, in some cases letting you admire the beauty of the desert in all its glory. However, some of these cameras put the focus more on the scenery and less on the driving experience, so if you’re racing against the clock, just stick to the settings you are most comfortable with.

There are things that I think should also be improved. For instance, if you can’t finish higher than P8 during a qualifying session, you won’t be eligible for the race, and this makes the game quite frustrating. Sure, you can give the whole thing another try, but at the end of the day, you shouldn’t be forced to restart the race just because you couldn’t do a perfect stage from one end to another.

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Buying cars and upgrading them is very rewarding, and this certainly plays the role of a major incentive to focus on the progress you make in the game. But on the other hand, you’ll spend a lot of time to unlock all classes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many people give up on the whole thing before this happens.

I’m seeing quite a lot of people complaining that unlocking the simulation mode takes too long, so if Saber wanted Dakar Desert Rally to be a challenging game, well, it is.

The Good

The Bad

CONCLUSION