A couple of weeks ago you could get Codemaster's Dirt Rally for free by subscribing to the Humble Store's newsletter. Now you can the 2015 racing game for free simply by downloading it from Steam before September 16. 

Once you do, it's yours to keep forever.

That's hell of a deal for just clicking your mouse a few times. In our review we called it "the best rally game in years." Steam reviews—over 20,000 of them—are 87% positive, so we're not the only ones who enjoyed it. Heck, it even has full Oculus VR support. Not bad for a game that's discounted 100%.

Thanks, VG247.

"The stages look incredible", we wrote in our Dirt Rally review back in 2015. "Dust plumes out from under your car as drones buzz through clear skies. Ice patches shimmer as you hammer past snow-laden trees, picking out the road through fog. Hot air balloons rest as you slide a 1970s escort around a hay bale. Mud flings into the air as you tumble a Lancia Delta down a cliff towards a pond. Watching replays are a joy and irresistible if you've had a decent run, made all the better by respectable engine noise and chattering pace notes." Players agree, and it's sitting on a Mostly Positive rating on Steam.

Until September 1 at 10am Pacific Time, or until supplies last, you can get a free Steam key for Dirt Rally by subscribing to the Humble Bundle newsletter. 

Most people don’t know how it feels to flick the back end of a rally car out on the approach to a blind turn, rain pelting down on the mud before them while someone shouts coded directions at them. It’s just not the sort of thing you find yourself doing, is it? In a game like Dirt Rally 2.0, then, a greater level of abstract thought is required to assess its ‘simulation’ cred than in, say, Project Cars 2. 

You might not have sent a McLaren P1 up Eau Rouge in your motoring life, but you know how a road car feels on a road. What do the snarling Group B rally cars feel like on a loose surface? Very few people know, and they’re probably much too busy to tell you about it in any great detail. That’s why Dirt Rally 2.0 exists.

Since its earliest outings under the Colin McRae banner, Codemasters’ rally series has traded on ‘feeling’ just right. The way its cars squirm and shift through corners; the way you can keep them just about under control while they power through turns at strange, unnatural angles—it’s always felt instinctively right. Never has that been more true than in the Midlands studio’s latest offroad proposition—Dirt Rally 2.0 tells you how it feels to be a professional rally driver with such fearsome assertiveness that you simply believe it. No questions asked. 

How does it feel, exactly? A bit like the Normandy beach landings, but with pace notes. A rally stage is an assault on every sense (alright, perhaps not taste or smell if we’re being pedantic), rattling the cockpit camera violently while an audio onslaught of complicated but crucially important pacenotes hits you, whether you’re ready for them or not. Force feedback surges through your wheel, fizzing your brain as though you’ve licked a battery, and whether using a wheel (preferable) or pad, vehicles behave just as you want them to—barely tameable, occasionally balletic in their powerslides, always convincing. This was broadly true of its predecessor—but in truth, Dirt Rally never felt anything like as scary or as taxing.

The sequel ramps up the visual fidelity where it counts, using weather effects and time of day to create real drama. Standing water in between muddy tyre tracks glints under your headlights, dust kicks up around your scrabbling wheels, and each of the six rally locations—New Zealand, Argentina, Spain, Poland, Australia and the USA—asserts its visual identity instantly, such is the level of environmental detail. It’s an incredibly handsome game, and one that doesn’t tax a humble GTX 1070 at max settings. 

Back from the venerated spec sheets of Codemasters’ GRID series is a team management aspect which sees you hiring staff, purchasing vehicles and setting liveries as you decide which event to enter next—a rally or a rallycross stage. Beyond providing a sense of structure to the content that was lacking slightly in the last entry, this serves as a timely reminder of what a brilliant aspect this is in any driving game. Seriously—why didn’t more games rip off Race Driver: GRID?

I digress. This is, as if you didn’t know, the official game of the 2019 FIA World Rallycross Championship, which means eight licensed tracks spanning the globe and meticulous event recreation across several series. Rallycross featured in Dirt Rally 2.0’s predecessor too, so its inclusion here doesn’t represent a leap forwards but instead a quiet fleshing out of the 2015 game’s skeleton. 

As and when you do decide to dedicate some time to rallycross—several cars battling for the victory on the same mixed-surface track, for the uninitiated—a wholly different set of skills are called upon than you’ve been honing with your co-driver over in rally events. Rather than reactive, isolated bursts of perfection, rallycross has you honing lines and lap times. It’s iteration and confrontation—and more qualifying rounds than seems strictly necessary, in all honesty. But that’s not the game’s fault. 

What these two deceptively different disciplines have in common in Dirt Rally 2.0 is that for the first few hours, you’ll win them incredibly easily. That’s not intended as a humblebrag: the AI really is that forgiving. Stack it even twice or three times on a single stage, and you might still expect to be towards the top of the classification with 20 seconds of penalties. Take an extra Joker lap—a longer layout of the circuit—by accident, and victory is by no means ruled out. 

Speaking personally, that forgiving AI led to a sensation of ‘failing upwards’ as I took win after win without truly mastering either car or track. It’s probably intended as a means to make Dirt Rally 2.0 more accessible than its forefather, but I’m not sure it quite works. Perhaps a rally school, similar to the one prefacing the famously formidable Richard Burns Rally might have been a more effective solution. Stiffer competition awaits online of course via custom championships, and it’s here that Dirt Rally 2.0’s long-term appeal lies. A talented community of modders and racers crystallised around the previous game, and there’s every bit as much incentive for it to do so once more here.

Because although this isn’t a complete overhaul of the last Dirt Rally, it does feel like progress. Certainly progress in the visuals, which look more than just four years down the line in this game. Progress in the level of immersion, thanks to tiny touches like driving beyond the finish line to the steward after each stage. And certainly progress in a sense of overarching structure to singleplayer racing, thanks to the team management conceit.

The only area it feels lacking in beyond that tepid AI is licensing—that Rallycross deal’s great and everything, but never has a game more richly deserved the WRC license than this one. Modders will work their magic on car liveries in that regard, but with the recognisable cars and names this might have been the vehicle to bring new fans to rallying. 

Racing fans, listen up: Dirt Rally is just $10 right now. That's a heck of a deal, and the lowest ever price for one of the best rally games you'll ever play. But put your foot down, because the deal only lasts until 10am Monday PT/1pm EST/6pm GMT.

You can customise the difficulty and realism of the game to your heart's content, with a whole menu of assists to dial up and down. If you're a rally newbie, the game will do some of the hard work for you, but enthusiasts can turn everything off for a much more challenging race that punishes even slight mistakes. Prepare to skid out around corners over and over again.

Its tracks and cars are authentic, too: it has more than 40 vehicles to choose from, more than 60 stages, and lots of officially licensed World Rallycross content. You'll fly through a number of game modes, and the presentation of the career-style mode really makes you feel like a proper rally driver.

You can pick up a Steam key for $10 at Chrono.gg. As I said, it's a historic low price, and the game is more than $50 on most stores at the moment. Grab it while you have a chance.

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Less than 24 hours remain in the latest Humble Monthly subscription offer, which this time around puts together the 2015 racing sim Dirt Rally and the creepy puzzle-adventure Inside for just $12—or less, if you commit to the three, six, or twelve-month subscription plans. 

Games included in the Humble Monthly deals are yours to keep, even if you cancel your subscription, so at the very least you can look at this as scoring a couple of very good games at a very low price. The offer actually includes more games than just these, worth more than $100 in total, but the rest of the bundle won't be revealed until the offer has ended—tomorrow, in this case. On top of that, Humble Monthly subscribers get ten percent off all purchases in the Humble Store, and five percent of all money raised each month goes to charity. 

The Dirty Insider Humble Monthly Bundle (that's what I've decided to call it) will be available until 1 pm ET on May 5—and yes, that's tomorrow, so you're interested you probably shouldn't dawdle. Check it out at humblebundle.com.

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.

Dirt Rally is a hardy driving game for purists. No flashy extras, no hip 'n' happenin' commentary, no snazzy marketing campaign to drill its existence into the public consciousness—just raw, dirty rally. Now, ahead of the console release and a free PC patch adding the likes of the Peugeot 207 and video tutorials, lead designer Paul Coleman has explained the series' previous heading and its sudden change of course, exemplified by the well received absence of Dirt 3's Gymkhana mode.

"When we made Dirt 3, rally was getting smaller and smaller," Coleman told our Ben Griffin. "The sport itself was in decline: there'd been the same world champion for the last 10 years and it was almost a foregone conclusion who was going to be winning at the start of the season. Ken Block was doing his Gymkhana videos, and it made perfect sense to focus on the knew thing that he was bringing to the table. But what we knew from Dirt 2 was that players were keen for us to return to our rally roots.

"Dirt 3 was a bit split. We had a bit of backlash from our fans about how much Gymkhana there was. Ken didn't renew his contract with us and moved to Need for Speed, so we couldn't actually use Gymkhana as a licence term anymore—it would have to have been something else, which would have probably felt a bit contrived anyway. So it was just a series of circumstances that occurred over the last four years since we released Dirt 3 where we felt like Gymkhana wasn't right for us, and even if it was, we couldn't really do anything with it."

Coleman doesn't rule out a return to Dirt 3's stunt driving with Rally's technology, but he's confident in the series' new feel. As to its sudden appearance in Early Access, it sounds like the Codemasters team enjoyed being free of the standard PR cycle, whatever effect it had on their sales.

"With dirt rally we felt like it would be better to just go out there and surprise people and just say, 'Look we're making this game, it's available now, but it's in Early Access so we're going to continue to develop it for the rest of the year'. And i think people appreciated that. We're just fed up of doing that thing where you announce a game and you've got to try and keep the community motivated without telling them too much. Marketing budgets were a lot smaller. Like, tiny, bare minimum marketing on Dirt Rally, but word of mouth has meant that it's got out there.

"The fact of the matter is we weren't sure Dirt Rally was going to be a huge success."

The Dirt series fell into freefall after shedding the Colin McRae name, padding its content with "cool" dialog, x-game events, fireworks and pomp. It was time to reset. With no buildup, no fuss, Codemasters announced and released Dirt Rally into early access in May, calling it "a pure expression of rally".

For release the content has been added to significantly. 39 cars are available including icons such as a 1960's Mini Cooper, a 70's Stratos, a 80's Group B Quattro, modern Imprezas, Fiestas, Peugeot Hillclimbers and more. As so often is the case though, including such a breadth of content comes with its own problems.

The cars look different, sound different, but they feel incredibly similar and lacking any real, unique character. They have similar weight, similar grip, similar gear ratios. Swapping from a '70s rear-wheel-drive Stratos to a 2010 Fiesta will come with faster times and a more responsive, stable car, but it's not enough, and cars in the same groups are barely distinguishable.

This lack of fidelity extends into other areas, keeping Dirt Rally at arms length from any sort of Sim status. With all assists off, an invisible hand will still gently help keep the rear end of your car in check. The in-car wheel is locked to 180 . The gearbox modelling is laughable. Stamping on the brakes is perfectly acceptable. Mud, ice and gravel feel incredibly similar. The amount of traction control is ridiculous. None of this means that it's bad per se—the cars drive predictably and well—it just means we are firmly in "game" rather than "sim" territory.

Much like Codemasters F1 games, if you have an interest in the sport without necessarily having the desire to drop hundreds of pounds into equipment—this is the most comprehensive pure-rally offering there has been for years. The car and stage selection is broad, and while physics suffer, driving concepts like racing lines, throttle control and oversteer still apply without being overly punishing. Driving the cars is exciting, it's just a bit simple. Plus, Codemasters have done the best job of giving you a feeling of a race weekend.

Three event types are available—rally, hillclimb and RallyX. Racing directly against AI in RallyX is a fun distraction—the AI is aggressive but fair, while avoiding feeling too artificial. Hillclimb and normal rallying are really the focus though, with events taking you over Swedish snow and ice, Greek dirt, Welsh mud, long stretches of German farmland, through Monaco's frozen tunnels and up over America's Pikes Peak.

Each rally is built up with stages, each stage a roughly four to ten minute long point-to-point time trial. The fastest overall time when all the stages are complete wins. Car degradation from each stage is persistent, with you having to allocate time for repairs between stages. It means a trade off between going balls-to-the wall fast and easing off to get your car through in one piece, After all, deciding on whether to repair your engine or making sure you can see through your windscreen is a tough call.

The stages look incredible. Dust plumes out from under your car as drones buzz through clear skies. Ice patches shimmer as you hammer past snow-laden trees.

The career mode stretches this concept out. As you complete events you accumulate cash to spend on cars and upgrades. That same money pot also goes towards repairs however, so each crash will put that new Lancia further and further away. All in all it's a fairly standard "career" mode with you unlocking newer and faster cars as you go. Fortunately this unlock system is completely separate from the rest of the game, so you're free to choose an era and a set of stages and go racing.

The stages look incredible. Dust plumes out from under your car as drones buzz through clear skies. Ice patches shimmer as you hammer past snow-laden trees, picking out the road through fog. Hot air balloons rest as you slide a 1970s escort around a hay bale. Mud flings into the air as you tumble a Lancia Delta down a cliff towards a pond. Watching replays are a joy and irresistible if you've had a decent run, made all the better by respectable engine noise and chattering pace notes.

DiRT Rally, then, has a bold title. It's a statement. It's explicitly a rally game. Not a Gymkhana game, not a trucks game, not a "hooning" game. A rally game where everyone takes it seriously, and in this it succeeds. Unfortunately, though, in physics and handling detail, it falls a little flat. The lack of any sort of precarious feel when flying over ice and mud is an absolute shame, and the amount of forced assistance is a disappointment. Anyone waiting for a new Richard Burns will need to carry on waiting. If you're after a successor to the old Colin McRae games or RalliSport Challenge though, DiRT Rally is a strong offering.

DiRT Rally has drifted out of Early Access onto Steam proper, and can be yours for 28/$42. Far from the stunt-driven, flashy entertainment of previous DiRTs, Rally is a deep and brutal sim that is out to ensure you fail your next MOT. Driving into trees, flooding the engine and going too off-road—in a range of weather conditions, naturally—will punish like no karting game you've played. And, if you can believe such a thing, it's a PC exclusive. Until April, anyway.

I don't often go in for driving games. Unless I've got beer and a gaggle of friends on-hand, I find perfecting my racing line around a fixed track or cityscape a touch bland. Careering down mountain paths with my heart in my throat and my faith in Codemasters' all-new physics, on the other hand, that I can get behind. Everything about the handling has been overhauled, from the suspension to how your car slides on scree, so if you're clued in on technical stuff like 'CCs', 'gravel crews' and 'windscreen wipers', this might be to your liking.

Andy described DiRT Rally as "as real as it gets", and some bloke on Twitter called it "game of the year"—cor! Andy will have an updated review for you in the next few days.

Codemasters has introduced some new characters to Dirt Rally. The Citro n C4 Rally 2010 and the Ford Focus RS Rally 2007, both fearsome competitors in the 2000s class, are now available in-game. What are their motivations? Do they have any ulterior motives? Will they gel with the rest of the game's cast? I don't know. All I can do is post this trailer showing them alongside a selection of their fellow castmates teasing their appearance in a slow-mo montage.

"At their peak, these cars reigned supreme with their 2 litre turbo charged engines and highly sophisticated differentials," explains the press release. So they're a classy bunch, it seems. 

The other supporting characters are from the R4 class: the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and the Subaru Impreza WRX STI 2011. No doubt that'll be a delicious rivalry to look forward to.

Back in April, we charged Andy with tackling the high drama of Dirt Rally's initial Early Access release. Since then, it's grown significantly through a number of updates.

Ah, Finland. It's definitely a country, and it's definitely where Finnish people live. It's also the setting for Dirt Rally's new update, which brings twelve stages set near J ms . As the video above demonstrates, it's a beautiful, green, tranquil kind of place or at least it is when rally cars aren't tearing through the countryside. 

Codemasters rolled the update out earlier today. It also boasts a new 2000s vehicle class, and two new vehicles in the form of the Subaru Impreza 2001 and Ford Focus RS Rally 2001. You can now create custom championships, while mouse support has also been patched in. Elsewhere, a range of tweaks and updates to existing cars have been actioned, including the handling on 60s, 70s, 80s RWD and 2010s classes.

Full details are over on the Dirt Rally Steam page. The update is free, as the game is still in Early Access.