DiRT 3 - On this day

The roots of the DiRT series go back to simulation games that bore the name of the late rally legend, Colin McRae. The British studio Codemasters has been developing these games for years with McRae's expert help, and since 2007 they have intended to expand their horizons beyond the rally. In addition to McRae's blessing, the series was supplemented by other automotive disciplines such as buggy racing, truck racing, and the like. They named him Colin McRae: DiRT and although Colin was no more, they honorably kept his name in the title of the 2009 sequel.

However, on this day 10 years ago Codemasters released the first DiRT without mentioning the late legend in the name of the game. DiRT 3 thus marked the beginning of a new era, imposing changes that took the series even further away from its rally beginnings.

It was noticeable that Codemasters wanted to frame the game as a spectacle, and this was primarily seen in the introduction of a new mode - Gymkhana, in which you had to overcome various obstacles and do some tricks like drifting. Furthermore, for the first time, the series devoted itself more significantly to the multiplayer component, but not through serious rally competitions but through a mode like Outbreak that was essentially a hunting game on the topic of spreading zombie infection.

Rally fans weren’t exactly thrilled, but there was no denying that DiRT 3 was a content game. His driving model balanced between arcade and simulation, and both ends had their advantages. For casual players, the possibility of rewinding time after an error from DiRT 2 is back, while for hardcore players, a mode of the same name was prepared, which limited the gameplay to the view from the vehicle cabin.

DiRT 3 picked up very good ratings, but it’s not known if that led the game to good sales. The only thing left to record is that Codemasters had a scandal after over three million keys for the PC version of the game on Steam leaked through AMD's promotion. The unfortunate PC version of 2014 became unplayable after the shutdown of Games for Windows Live, which was fixed 16 months later. But in the end, the game did not live long in sales and in 2017 it was removed from sale due to the expiration of car licenses.

Technically, DiRT 3 can no longer be purchased, but can still be played on PC, PS3, and Xbox platforms (including Xbox One and Series X / S). But the remaining games from the series are therefore available. The series returned to the rally twice with a DiRT Rally spin-off, DiRT 4 rebalanced things in 2017, while DiRT 5 embraced show, spectacle, and arcade again in late 2020.