Dark new mud being caked upon dried, pale dust over the course of several heats of a Rallycross event. The leaf litter lining the unsealed backroads of Michigan, churned up and dancing in slipstreams. The heat haze wafting above the wide starting straights in the stadium-based Landrush events the compacted dirt surfaces baking under the harsh sun. The visuals still lack a little of the sharpness of some of its peers in the racing space (and some shadows get a bit choppy) but there’s a lot of great detail here. The lighting is the best that’s ever come out of Codemasters, from the way it plays off the different paint types and car surfaces to the way low sun lights up thick fog in a bright orange haze. So take a Seat.Until now, Codemasters’ Ego engine games have always looked a little muted. No more cheeky reverse stages or repetitive shared track sections, and no more belting up and down the exact same stages for months on end Your Stage is a gamechanger for rally games. Five environments is probably the bare minimum Codemasters needed (the traits Dirt Rally’s Finland, Monaco, and Germany would have brought to this game are missed) but we’ve definitely gained more than we’ve lost here. Trackside detail is varied and the game’s pace notes – provided by Welshman Nicky Grist and Canadian Jen Horsey – are always accurate. Segments are seamlessly blended together.

Most impressive of all, there’s nothing about Your Stage courses that makes it obvious they’ve been built by an algorithm rather than a bunch of humans. You can also save the ones you like most and share them with friends. “You can’t raise or lower bits of your custom tracks yourself, nor can you push and pull certain sections around to customise the end product, but the impact of having a unique stage curated for every career event (and a bottomless supply of them at your fingertips outside of the career mode) cannot be understated.

Dirt 4 ps4 gameplay