Watch The Trailer For Old School Rally, The Nostalgia-Drenched Rally Game Of Our Dreams

2024’s looking a little dry in terms of big racing game releases. Other than the expected yearly titles like F1 24 and the second entry in EA Sports’ WRC series, and the at this point almost mythical Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown, there’s not a whole lot to look forward to from the big studios.

Thankfully, there are always indie studios and developers to slake our thirst. One of the smaller releases we’re most excited about this year is Old School Rally, and its developer, Sakis Rogkas, has just dropped a trailer.

We spoke to Rogkas earlier this year, who told us it began as a “for fun” project, adding it was “mostly so I can study the PS1 features and limitations and how that translates to modern hardware. It later transformed into something very promising and, with all the positive feedback it received, it evolved into a more polished game with plans for a release on PC and hopefully consoles later.”

The title is very clearly inspired by late ’90s rally games like the early entries in the Colin McRae Rally series, and the V-Rally games. Fittingly for something that began as a tech demo to see how far PlayStation 1-spec hardware could be pushed, it has a properly nostalgic feel to its visuals.

The trailer gives us a look at some of the decade-spanning car list. There are tributes to cars from the sport’s early days like the Lancia Fulvia and original Mini, stuff from the Group B and Group A eras, right up to versions of some turn-of-the-century WRC machinery like the Peugeot 206.

We also get a look at some of the game’s varied locations, which look to be inspired by iconic real-life rally settings including Sweden, Finland and Japan, among others – all rendered in gloriously low-res late ’90s blockiness.

It’s especially impressive when you consider Rogkas is developing Old School Rally entirely by himself, and intentionally restricting the games’ technical capabilities for a more authentic feel despite PS1 hardware being almost three decades out of date.

Rogkas plans to release Old School Rally to the public later in 2024, but a Steam page is now live where you can add it to your wishlist. We’d recommend keeping an eye on this one.