Introduction

Welcome to the vast and treacherous world of Dakar 18, a game that aims to take you on the ultimate motorsport endurance experience without requiring you to endure its bugs for 9000 km. Created by Bigmoon Entertainment and fueled with the ambition of a thousand rally drivers, it attempts a daring journey into the heart of rally racing but likely takes a few wrong turns along the way. Buckle up, because this is going to be a bumpy ride!

Gameplay

Dakar 18 invites players into an open world so expansive you could probably fit all your failed attempts at driving into it. With a staggering size of over 18,000 square kilometers, it’s like the developers thought, 'Why not just make the biggest game no one can finish?' The game features a whopping 14 stages across Bolivia, Argentina, and Peru, each inferring that if you see a sand dune, you should drive directly into it. Navigating through this wilderness is where things get tricky and not in a 'fun' way. The developers decided that players should manage a navigator, using real Road Books that would make Indiana Jones envious. Players must decipher road signs and trust their navigational skills, which essentially turns each stage into a glorified scavenger hunt mixed with a tremendous amount of frustration. Three difficulty modes are here to haunt you: Rookie, Competitor, and the unholy terror known as Legend, that rewards masochists chasing down every last checkpoint with punishingly realistic navigation. Players can also select 'Explore' to brush up on the basics, or invest time in possum-hunting—err, treasure hunting—once they recognize they’d rather collect artifacts than chase a digital rally towards their inevitable crash. Multiplayer allows up to seven players to meme-ify their way through stages, which raises the question: Why would you choose to play Racing OSINT when you can mess with your friends? Did I mention there are vehicles involved? From trucks to motorcycles and quads, each vehicle comes with different physics designed to remind you that driving is less fun when your vehicle is trying to root itself into the universe. If you crash, which you will, you can hop out and start digging (yes, digging) to get your vehicle free. Clearly, off-road racing was overestimated as a straightforward concept in the developer's meeting.

Graphics

Dakar 18 runs on Unreal Engine 4, a solid engine in the gaming world that can deliver jaw-dropping visuals, as long as you don’t look too closely. The game excels in creating an impressive backdrop with beautiful if not lonely landscapes that can simultaneously inspire awe and despair. Unlike your bad Tinder dates, the environments in Dakar 18 are vast, detailed, and populated by basically nothing. That said, if you needed proof that the roads could be abundant in textures, the vehicles will show off some of the most delightful mud splatter effects you’ll ever see. They really captured the feeling that you’ve just driven an off-road vehicle through a nature preserve while simultaneously reinforcing that the graphics engine wasn't optimized for vehicular collisions—because let’s be honest, the physics may feel like they were modeled after an overcooked piece of spaghetti. Still, the visual spectacle is grounded in an overall mediocre package, with textures that sometimes look like they were flown in from the 90s.

Conclusion

Dakar 18 aims to quench your thirst for off-road racing through its vast landscapes and complicated navigation but fails to balance realism with fun. It comes off as too ambitious, trying to deliver an experience meant for hardcore rally fans, yet it stumbles upon mechanics that tend to frustrate more than entertain. It offers some rewarding moments, especially for those willing to brave the rough roads of its open world. However, that reward often feels overshadowed by moments where you’ll be left weeping into your controller after the eighth crash in a row. In a world where racing games are constantly evolving, what defines fun as opposed to a technical learning experience becomes the key determinant. If you’re looking for a game that lets you channel your inner rally enthusiast while melding it with copious amounts of cartoonish antics or exploration and strange navigation, then maybe, just maybe, give it a go. Just keep your expectations and your car aligned! You might find some shining moments, but you’ll really need to put your brain through the equivalent of an indoor karting race, after all. Enjoy the dirt, and good luck out there!

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