Games like DiRT Rally worth playing in 2026 are Mars Rally Championship, a free browser rally game listed first because it is ours, and then, on merit: DiRT Rally 2.0, still the best all-rounder; EA Sports WRC, the official game, whose final content came out in 2025; Richard Burns Rally with the free RallySimFans mod, the deepest sim of all; Assetto Corsa Rally, the early-access newcomer; and art of rally, the pick without a wheel. Our game puts one Mars rover on two stages; it is not an Earth rally sim.
What DiRT Rally players are actually looking for
Most lists of DiRT Rally alternatives come from aggregators, which is why they recommend Forza Horizon, Need for Speed and Wreckfest: games with gravel in them, built around racing a field of cars rather than a stage and a clock. A game feels like DiRT Rally when it gets five things right:
- Surfaces that fight back. Grip that changes corner to corner and stage to stage.
- Long stages, driven once. Point to point, mostly blind, against the clock.
- A co-driver worth trusting. Calls early enough to brake on. If they still sound like code, our pace-note glossary translates them.
- Damage that follows you. A clipped bank on stage two costs time on stage five.
- Somewhere to measure yourself. Leaderboards, events, friends' times.
The format behind all five is how real rally racing works. If you need something free in a browser tab, that shelf is sorted in our roundup of free browser rally games. Everything below is judged on those five points, and on whether it still works in 2026.
Games like DiRT Rally at a glance
Prices are US list prices on Steam (launch price for EA Sports WRC), before the frequent sales; status is as of September 2026. Mars Rally Championship is first because it is ours; the rest are ranked on how well each replaces DiRT Rally.
| Game | What it is | Platforms | Price (USD) | Status, September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mars Rally Championship Play | Stage rally on Mars, one rover | Browser, phones included | Free | Two stages, in development |
| DiRT Rally 2.0 | Rally sim, 2019 | PC, PS4, Xbox One | $39.99 (GOTY Edition) | Clubs closed 8 July 2026; other online modes up |
| EA Sports WRC | Official WRC game, 2023 | PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S | $49.99 at launch | No new content since March 2025 |
| Richard Burns Rally + RallySimFans | Hardcore rally sim, 2004 | Windows PC | Free | Community-run, weekly online events |
| Assetto Corsa Rally | Laser-scanned rally sim | PC (Steam) | $29.99 | Early access since 13 November 2025 |
| art of rally | Top-down stylised rally, 2020 | PC, Mac, Linux, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, Android | $24.99 | Complete; on phones since 2024 |
| BeamNG.drive | Soft-body sandbox with a rally mode | PC; PS5 from 19 October 2026 | $24.99 | Early access; rally loop added July 2026 |
| Rush Rally 3 | 3D rally for phones | iOS, Android, Switch, PC | Paid app | Available, with live events |
| Stunt Rally 3 | Open-source stunt racer, not stage rally | PC (Windows, Linux) | Free | 232 tracks, 33 vehicles in v3.3 |
That last column is what aggregator pages miss. Since spring 2025, EA has ended content for its WRC game, DiRT Rally 2.0 has lost its Clubs and the original DiRT Rally has lost its online services.
Mars Rally Championship: one rover, two stages, no download
Our game, listed first for that reason. This is Mars Rally Championship's own site; everything below it is ranked on how well it replaces DiRT Rally.
Mars Rally Championship is a free 3D rally game that runs in a browser tab with no download, no install and no account. What it is not matters as much: one vehicle, a rover, and no Earth rally cars; two stages, not a season; no force feedback, no VR and no car setup. It plays on a keyboard, a gamepad or a phone's touchscreen.
What it shares with DiRT Rally is the part that makes stage rally hard. Under Mars gravity of 3.72 m/s², the grip budget on loose regolith is about 3.1 m/s², so braking from 100 km/h takes about 125 metres and 9 seconds, roughly 2.4 times the distance on Earth gravel with the same tyres. A co-driver calls the corners on the 1-to-6 severity scale, derived from the stage geometry, spoken and shown on screen with an advised speed, 8 seconds ahead at your current pace. The Mars Cup runs stages back to back, and damage carries between them.
If DiRT is your reference, start on Stage 2, The Long Run: 2,306 metres of timed line through 12 checkpoints, short by DiRT standards. Every leaderboard time is re-simulated on the server from its recorded inputs before it posts, and any board run can be watched or raced as a ghost.
Play free — no downloadThe best rally sims after DiRT Rally
Among the best rally games on PC and console, four give a DiRT Rally player the same fear over a blind crest.
DiRT Rally 2.0 is still the default
If you played the original DiRT Rally, 2.0 is the next game; if you played 2.0, nothing newer has clearly replaced it. Codemasters released it on 26 February 2019 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, and added VR on PC that summer. A stage feels dangerous without being unfair, and the surface cuts up as the field goes through.
EA closed Racenet Clubs, its asynchronous league events, on 8 July 2026 along with the game's website; Time Trial, the My Team career and Quick Play multiplayer still work. The Game of the Year Edition, with every Seasons pack and the Colin McRae FLAT OUT Pack, lists at $39.99 on Steam and is often discounted.
The original DiRT Rally (2015) lost its online services on 8 November 2025, with DiRT 4, so buy 2.0 instead. DIRT 5 is a different animal: an arcade off-road racer, not a rally sim.
EA Sports WRC is the official one, and it is finished
EA Sports WRC is the official game of the FIA World Rally Championship, made by Codemasters and released on 3 November 2023 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S at $49.99. It has the most licensed content here: the full WRC licence, a car builder and the 2024 season expansion. Most players find its handling more forgiving than DiRT Rally 2.0's, which makes it the easier pick on a gamepad.
On 30 April 2025, EA said the Hard Chargers pack, released that March with 12 stages and six cars, was the final content and that Codemasters had paused future rally games. The same development update from EA promised the game stays available to new players; it had joined EA Play, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on 5 December 2024. It is a finished game, not a live service, and the licensed pick for games like WRC until Nacon's new one arrives.
Richard Burns Rally with RallySimFans is the free deep end
Richard Burns Rally came out in 2004, developed by Warthog with advice from Richard Burns, the 2001 world champion it is named after, and it is still the reference for rally physics. It is not sold on Steam or GOG. The usual way to play it now is the free RallySimFans (RSF) installer from a Hungarian community project, which bundles the base game with the RSF plugin.
The download is well over 10 GB, by torrent, and a full install takes roughly 100 GB on Windows, though you can leave most stages out to start. That buys hundreds of stages, a large roster of modded cars, VR support, alternative pace-note systems, and online rallies and hotlaps with a free RSF account. The RallySimFans site has the download and install guide; weekly online events still run in 2026.
It is the least forgiving game here: it wants a wheel and pedals, and the first hour is spent in ditches. It is the best rally sim for no money, and for many players the best, full stop.
Assetto Corsa Rally is the new one to watch
Assetto Corsa Rally entered Steam Early Access on 13 November 2025 at $29.99, built by Supernova Games Studios with Kunos Simulazioni, the Assetto Corsa studio, and published by 505 Games. It runs on Unreal Engine 5 over laser-scanned roads: Wales and Alsace at launch, then Monte Carlo and Greece. Ten licensed cars at launch; more than thirty planned.
Early access means what it says: PC only, VR planned for late 2026, a fraction of DiRT Rally 2.0's stages, and updates that do not always land. Version 0.6, out on 10 September 2026, added three cars and 16-player private lobbies, and drew criticism for its throttle model; the studio aims for version 1.0 within 12 to 18 months of the early-access launch. It is also, by most accounts, the best-looking rally game you can buy; its Steam page logs each update.
Rally games that work without a wheel
DiRT Rally on a gamepad is possible and slightly miserable. These three suit a pad, a phone or a short evening.
art of rally
Funselektor Labs, the studio behind Absolute Drift, made art of rally as stage rally seen from above: a top-down camera, stylised landscapes and cars inspired by rally's golden era. Released in September 2020 on PC, Mac and Linux, it has since reached Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, iOS and Android, and lists at $24.99 on Steam. It keeps one car, a timed stage and momentum to manage, and it plays well on a gamepad.
BeamNG.drive's rally mode
BeamNG.drive is a soft-body sandbox, not a rally game, but its v0.39 update in July 2026 added a 30 km all-gravel rally loop whose four special stages total 16.4 km, with pace notes written and read by Alex Kihurani, the 2024 British Rally Champion co-driver. It is $24.99 in PC early access, where it has been since 2015, with a PS5 early-access version due on 19 October 2026. The crash physics are in a class of their own. There is no browser version, for reasons our physics-driving roundup explains.
Rush Rally 3
Brownmonster's Rush Rally 3 is the closest thing to DiRT Rally on a phone: a 3D rally game with a career, live events, and live and asynchronous multiplayer. It is a paid app on iOS and Android and also runs on Switch and PC.
Is there a free game like DiRT Rally?
Yes: Richard Burns Rally through the free RallySimFans installer. No other free game we know of is a full rally sim, but three options come near:
- Stunt Rally 3 is free and open source, with 232 tracks, 33 vehicles, ghosts and a track editor as of version 3.3. It handles like a rally car on gravel, but its tracks are stunt circuits closer to TrackMania than to a stage.
- EA Sports WRC joined EA Play, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass in December 2024, so subscribers pay nothing extra while it stays in the catalogue. That is a subscription, not free.
- Browser rally games are free, install nothing and run on a school Chromebook. They are small: Mars Rally Championship is two stages and one rover, and the portal rally games are mostly arcade.
Will there be a new WRC game?
Yes, though not from EA. In May 2025 the championship's promoter gave Nacon exclusive rights to the official WRC games for six seasons, 2027 to 2032, on PC and consoles. The developer is Grit Games, a new studio led by former KT Racing developers; KT Racing made seven WRC games between 2015 and 2022, ending with WRC Generations. The new game, titled WRC – The Official Game, is a from-scratch reboot in Unreal Engine 5, due in late 2027.
The licence says nothing about handling: DiRT Rally 2.0 and Richard Burns Rally, the two best-regarded sims here, never carried the WRC name.
Where to try this
Mars Rally Championship is the one entry here that drives straight from a link: start driving in your browser, with no install and no account. The daily challenge gives every pilot the same seeded stage and sky until local midnight, the nearest thing here to a DiRT Rally 2.0 Clubs event. And nine rally-game techniques, from braking earlier to landing settled, carry over to most games on this page.