Hi folks,
Well, somehow more than four years of development has passed, and Exo Rally Championship is out now!
I started the game back in early 2022, not long after Exo One. I still wanted to keep exploring alien planets, movement, momentum, physics and traversal, but from a totally different angle. In Exo One you were mostly gliding and rolling over these worlds. With Exo Rally, I wanted to know what those alien surfaces would actually feel like if you had tires digging into them, suspension bottoming out, rocks trying to tear the rover apart, strange weather rolling in, and the planet itself generally doing its best to kill you.
So the idea became: take proper, brutal off-road rally - Dakar, Baja, old dangerous motorsport, all that stuff - and throw it onto procedurally generated alien planets.
No roads. No hand-authored racing line. No two stages quite the same. Just you, a stupidly powerful rover, a hostile planet, and a very questionable amount of confidence.
Then we added fuel-limited thrusters, because when there’s no road whatsoever, they're your only lifeline. You can use them to fight for control over jumps, correct bad landings, save crashes, or make things even more dangerously fast for yourself.
I didn't make this on my own. Rhys Lindsay, who I've known since we were kids, has been deep in the programming trenches with me while also making another epic soundtrack, like he did for Exo One. Mark Billington has also been a huge part of getting the rover physics and handling to where they are.
At launch, Exo Rally Championship has:
A full career mode, taking you from the back of the pack through the rover classes and up to the top-tier, six-wheeled beasts fighting for the title
A mix of hand-crafted planets and stages, alongside endlessly varied procedural stages, so every run is unique and crosses new terrain
Off-road physics covering tires, drivetrain, suspension, damage and terrain interaction
Thruster-assisted driving for jumps, landings, rotation and general panic recovery
Daily races with changing conditions and global times
A Stage Editor for building, testing and sharing your own stages across alien landscapes up to 10 km²
Online asynchronous rally events and leaderboards, so you can race the same rallies as your friends without needing a live lobby or matching schedules
If you've ever wanted to drive somewhere no one has ever driven before, probably too fast, in a machine that may or may not survive the stage, this one's for you.
Have a crack, let us know what you think, and jump into the Discord if you want to chat, give feedback, report bugs, or show us whatever sadistic stage you've built.
Speaking of Discord, I want to say a proper thanks to everyone who helped shape the game during playtesting. Some of you have been testing, breaking, arguing with, improving, and generally abusing this thing for a long time now, and the game genuinely wouldn't be what it is without you.
Cheers,
Jay