It is the king of off-road rallies. A two-week torture test that pushes the endurance of both humans and machines to their absolute limits, and beyond. Crossing 10,000km in twelve stages, the Dakar is a bucket-list event for many race fans around the world. And this year, it’s finally coming to PCs and consoles.
Announced today, with an unspecified 2018 release date, Dakar 18 promises single- and multi-player racing action on the biggest cross-country rally in the world. Developer Bigmoon Entertainment says that they’ve been building a massive open world to accommodate the off-road open nature of the rally. The game promises to include all of the major official Dakar manufacturer racing teams, vehicles, drivers, of all five racing classes (Cars, Motorcycles, Quads, Side-by-Sides, and Trucks).
The game is published by Deep Silver/Koch Media. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media states “We are delighted to work with Bigmoon Entertainment’ on this promising title and look forward to bringing all our expertise to the project. Beyond that we look forward together to establishing the Dakar franchise in the racing community.”
Probably the coolest class in the Dakar are the off-road trucks. Based on commercial truck chassis, these behemoths hurtle through the desert at high speeds and sometimes take flight.
Paulo J. Games, Game Director of Bigmoon Entertainment had this to say: “We are proud to be partnering with A.S.O and Koch Media in order to bring a truly realistic DAKAR racing experience to players worldwide. As the official developer of the project, we are sure that DAKAR 18 will be the finest representation of real life DAKAR in a video game.”
Car and motorcycle side by side across the desert.
Bigmoon Studios has been the developer for a number of titles over the years, including Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, Syndrome, and Demons Age, and has produced art for a variety well-regarded racing titles such as MotoGP 13 and Flatout.
Dakar 18 is slated for release on Sony’s PlayStation®4 system, Microsoft’s Xbox One family of consoles, and PCs (presumably via Steam). We’ll have more information about this exciting new racing title as it comes out later this year!
