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Dirt Rally’s Modern Masters update adds cars your dad would approve of, manual wipers

Dirt Rally Modern Masters update

Mud-slinging Early Access racer Dirt Rally just rolled out its latest update. Dubbed Modern Masters, it adds cars from the past decade that dominated the sport in their time, updates group A and B cars to the V.2 handling model, sprinkles new features liberally over single player and PvP modes, and squashes some bugs. 

“That’s the Citroën C4 Rally 2010,” your dad says as he spies one of the newly added cars on-screen from behind your shoulder. “The car that gave Loeb and Ogier a combined 10 victories during the 2010 WRC championship.” His interest piques still further as he spies theFord Focus RS Rally 2007, which he informs you droveMarcus Grönholm and Mikko Hirvonen to a combined eight victories that year, even though you know, Dad, jeez.

He leaves with a look that undermines your life choices before you try out the other new cars: the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and the Subaru Impreza WRX STI 2011. “They are great fun to drive, despite carrying a bit more weight than the other rally cars and each have their own character” says Codemasters’ Paul Coleman via an update to the game’s official blog.

Elsewhere in the update, the game’s Group B and Group A cars have been updated to the new V.2 handling model, which developers hope increases realism while maintaining the unique challenge of the historical beasts. Leaderboards for cars in those categories have been reset accordingly. That just leaves theKit Cars, Group B RWD and Pikes Peak categories lingering on V.1 handling, and they’ll be updated in the upcoming Winter Wonderland update.

How about new features? “We’ve added Stage Distance and Elevation to the stage information screens,” explains Coleman, “and added manual controls for the windscreen wipers and the headlamps (if you want control over them). We’ve also added a system that means that you are more likely to get mechanical faults if you haven’t repaired a part well enough in the service area.”

That’s in addition to new PvP mode features, improved 1:1 steering wheel animation, and a bunch of bug fixes to elements such as co-driver instructions and achievements.

The Modern Masters update was due to roll out earlier, but licensing problems with one particular – graciously unnamed vehicle – delayed the release.

Quick: DiRT Rally has a 15% discount on Steam right now!