The first major issue with
DiRT 5 is how seemingly current-gen the whole game looks. When I think about the promise of Xbox Series or PlayStation 5, I look back at bullet-point lists in the recent hype cycle. Insane loading times. Virtual worlds that can stretch much further into the distance, owing to
a faster I/O architecture. Larger crowds of people and vehicles, powered by a substantial boost to CPU specs. Incredible texture fidelity on people and terrain.
Maybe some ray tracing (though, let's be real, we're still waiting on anything with ray tracing enabled to exceed 30fps on one of this year's consoles).
DiRT 5 fails to meet pretty much all of those bullet points. Generally, it looks like a current-gen console game that would have struggled to hit a smooth 60fps on Xbox One X or PS4 Pro, especially at resolutions higher than 1080p. I've seen crazier amounts of distant terrain and geometry in
60fps racers like OnRush, and I've seen more convincing foliage and weather effects in
Forza Horizon 4 (which maxed at 30fps when it launched on Xbox One). Like other mainline entries in the series, this DiRT sequel sticks to formal racetracks with a mix of concrete and unfinished roads—not open-world romps. It looks so familiar, in fact, that if I told you all of the images in this article were from
2017's DiRT 4, you might believe me. (To be clear, all images in this article are from
DiRT 5 on Xbox Series X.)
Even at their most ambitious,
DiRT 5's race tracks emphasize the kinds of foliage designs and rendering distances you've seen before. In particular, camera angles emphasize limited views as you careen toward your next drift-filled turn, as opposed to eye-popping zips through massive valleys. (The few times the game has you drive off massive ramps, they're not sold with a sense of scale; you simply see a wide-open, low-resolution skybox behind a straight chunk of road to land on.) Also, for a game with so many puddles, the reflections in this game use a particularly inaccurate-looking screen-space option—and, again, I didn't expect ray tracing, but even cube maps would've looked better than this.
Worst of all is the game's terrain. Despite so much emphasis on driving over puddles, mud, and snow,
DiRT 5 includes zero incredibly limited terrain deformation systems. You won't see mud pile up in tread-filled chunks, nor clear tire trails through dusty roads, while the meek trail marks through snowy terrain auto-vanish after about 10 yards. I'm not saying the game
needs such computationally expensive systems, nor even a cleverly coded facsimile that applies simple texture tricks over messy roads. But in
DiRT 5, all of the splashes and explosions of mud and dust aren't met by a road that matches, and it's hard not to notice.
