Conquer the desert in v0.27

Dirt: the final frontier! Version 0.27 marks a major achievement for the game as this is our biggest release yet.

Our team has toiled away for over two years on a mission to deliver this groundbreaking experience. Along the way, we overcame major challenges and spent hundreds of hours researching and deliberating with off-road experts. We can’t wait to fill you in on all of the details, so let’s jump right into it!

NEW MAP: Johnson Valley

Introducing Johnson Valley – a top-tier destination for those in search of an off-road adventure, inspired by both its real-life counterpart in Southern California and the neighboring Kelso Dunes.

Whether you’re an experienced off-road enthusiast or a beginner looking for a thrill, Johnson Valley has something for you. This blazing landscape is 10km² in size, and features an abundance of obstacles, including rocky paths perfect for rock crawling, winding dirt trails that test your stamina and endurance, towering sand dunes that will push your reflexes to the limit, and for drag racing connoisseurs – the longest straight paved highway among all our maps.

Several points of interest can be found scattered throughout the map, including a nearly town-sized RV base camp filled with hundreds of objects, a ranch, and a remote pit stop zone. And near the edge of the map you will find a Tyrannos gas station, ferociously guarded by Wrecksy, your friendly neighborhood T-rex and the brand’s charming mascot.

This project proved to be a challenge for the team. We began with boots on the ground, collecting photos of the area for future reference, getting lost numerous times in the process, and having fun interviewing locals and other lost visitors.

(see our website for more concept art and in-progress images)

When the development kicked off, it was clear that matching shapes to the real-world terrain would not be easy. Once the concept art was finalized, we started generating shapes in our terrain generation tool, followed by processing them through erosion filters and feeding different pieces back into the generator to produce the final shapes that resembled our references the most.

(see our website for more concept art and in-progress images)

The reproduction of dirt roads was also a major obstacle. With procedural generation, it was simply impossible to achieve the level of aesthetic and functional realism we strive for. This meant that most trails had to be sculpted manually, meter by meter, with rigorous testing at each stage.

(see our website for more concept art and in-progress images)

This map also features a selection of new rocks, placement of which has been very tricky – in no small part due to gameplay requirements we won’t spoil for you yet.

And the final boss on this quest was of course optimization. To put Johnson Valley in perspective, it originally had 16 times the detail density of Italy (which is already one of our most complex maps). The team worked hard to maintain the desired level of quality while keeping the area playable on a wide range of hardware configurations. The RV camp is another excellent example of this; a variety of trailer designs was required, but the number of textures used had to be kept to a minimum. The end result is 23 unique layouts, all of which are made using only three textures and specific modules.

In addition to the map, we are providing a complete fleet of new vehicles ready to help you punch your way out of any situation.

NEW VEHICLE: SP