DiRT Showdown trailer revives the deserted Destruction Derby

When DiRT Showdown was announced as the surprise spin-off to sublime DiRT 3, we were intrigued by Codemaster’s decision to develop a more arcade take on their beloved off-road racer. And if you hadn’t already twigged from the outset, this new gameplay trailer sums up what Showdown is all about perfectly: this isn’t DiRT the serious-faced rally simulation, more its young hyperactive cousin who’s obsessed with gratuitous speed, carnage, and explosions.

It’s therefore a safe bet to hypothesise that DiRT: Showdown will do little to appease those who are hankering for the point to point rallying the series was once renowned for. But in doing so, it could help revive a long lost genre.

Watching the video, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were watching a trailer for a modern day Destruction Derby, a game that started a genre we feel needs a bit of a restoration. With FlatOut now a distant memory thanks to Turn10’s unwelcome takeover, it’s been far too long since we had the simple pleasure of taking a rust bucket banger racer and smashing it beyond recognition.

This is where DiRT Showdown comes in, as the trailer showcases a new dusty Nevada 8 ball circuit which instantly bring back memories of the original Destruction Derby’s notoriously chaotic figure of eight track. Those who played Codemasters’ Race Driver: GRiD will also recognise the track from its demolition derby mode, a one-off excursion that will no doubt be fleshed out in Showdown.

The sheer anxiety of whether you would make it through the next crossroads in one piece while your rivals came hurtling towards you was a consistently harrowing experience, and one that Showdown looks to rekindle. You have to respect the brainless breed of lunatics that do this sort of thing in real life – I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing a figure of eight race featuring, believe it or not, 3 wheeled Reliant Robins. Rather them than me.

We particularly like the variety of cars on show - a novelty van and even a hearse can be seen jostling with the standard derby cars whilst soaring over jumps and narrowly avoiding cross traffic, in what seems to be an attempt to evoke real-life American demolition derbies. It’s a formula that worked well in Test: Drive Eve of Destruction (simply known as Driven to Destruction here) on the PS2, which still remains the most comprehensive tribute to the sport in a video game. And yet it remains relatively obscure.

Sadly, then, it seems that a dedicated destruction derby game would have a hard time selling these days. Still, I can always dream of that Destruction Derby remake as a download-only release one day, right?

Back to DiRT Showdown, and our initial impressions are certainly positive. Codemasters rarely let us down when it comes to healthy nuggets of graphical goodness, and judging from the lighting alone Showdown is already looking like it will retain that standard.

Of course, destruction is the heart of the trailer and this is another area that you can always count on Codemasters to excel in. Their damage modelling has always been exemplary, but with the boundaries of licensed cars you can’t help but feel they were restricted on how extensively they could deform their car models.

DiRT Showdown looks to counter this by including unlicensed cars for the first time in the destruction derby events (don’t worry; the usual plethora of rally cars will be readily available in the new Gymkhana substitute Hoonigan mode). We therefore expect an even more detailed damage model than before, and while the trailer didn’t provide any long lasting looks at the damage on impacts, what we saw left us wanting more. Even the flashbacks have reportedly been ingeniously renamed to “crashbacks,” in case you didn’t understand DiRT’s new-found penchant for carnage.

Considering this is the first early gameplay footage we’ve seen of DiRT Showdown, not to mention its relatively short development cycle and Codemasters’ consistency, our hopes are already high, particularly as DiRT Showdown represents a potentially important resurrection of the destruction derby genre.

With the Hoonigan events providing players with DiRT 3’s dose of Gymkhana-esque tomfoolery, It’s almost as if DiRT Showdown is the result of Codemasters getting their inner-yobbo out of their system. This is actually good news for core fans however, since it will hopefully mean that Showdown will pave the way for a more back to the roots approach for both DiRT 4 and GRiD 2 - i.e. the proper rally and racing simulations that have been so long in coming from one of the most respected racing game developers in the industry.

Look out for our Q&A session with Codemasters on DiRT Showdown coming soon. In the meantime, check out all the latest screenshtos and renders below:

Words by Martin Bigg (Twitter: @drivinggamespro)

Please register or login to post comments