Bigben Interactive, the video game publisher and distributor, and Kylotonn Games, the French racing game developer, give you the opportunity to go behind the scenes of the development of WRC 5, the official 2015 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) game, scheduled for release in autumn 2015 on Xbox One, the all-in-one games an entertainment system and Xbox 360 games and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®4, Playstation®3, PlayStation®Vita and PC.
For this first trip behind the scenes of WRC 5, Bigben Interactive and Kylotonn Games introduce two of the development team managers, selected for their knowledge of motor sport, racing games, and rally games: Alain Jarniou (Game Director) and Diego Sartori (Creative Director)
Diego Sartori: avid motor racing fan.
As an automobile mechanic, Diego began professional life with Citroën in 1992. He then fully assembled a Citroën AX Sport Group A and took part in a few rally sprints in his native Denmark. In 1998, Jason Watt entrusted him with the preparation of his 1966 Ford Mustang for vintage races, in 2002 Jason Watt won the Danish Touring Car Championship with Diego working as a mechanic and driver assistant on his team. He entered the world of video games in 2004 when SimBin hired him to test GTR. From that point on, Diego’s professionalism and technical expertise ensured rapid progress: he worked on GTR and GT Legends in 2005, Producer on GTR 2 and Game Director on RACE – The Official WTCC Game. In 2007, he became Creative Director at SimBin Studios working on RACE 07 and its expansion packs until 2011. He remained Creative Director and Management Group member at SimBin Studios until 2014, adding RaceRoom Racing Experience and DTM Experience to his portfolio. In 2014 the WRC 5 project caught his eye and he left SimBin to become Creative Director at Kylotonn.
“After having worked for many years in motor sport and with racing video games, today I’m going back to what I love: a rally game.” Diego explained. “The WRC really is one of the most demanding and exciting championships in motor racing, and we want players of WRC 5 to experience and feel all the drama and excitement of the sport , in particular through game modes that are a first for rally games and that we’ll be unveiling over the coming months,“ he said.
Alain Jarniou: the man behind two racing game legends!
With a technical education in programming, Alain Jarniou began his career alongside Frédéric Raynal at No Cliché as Game Programmer on Toy Commander. In 2001 he joined Eden Games and specialised in racing games, becoming Career Mode manager on V-Rally 3, a game many consider to have set the standard for rally games on PlayStation®2. In 2004, he joined the team in charge of the series Test Drive Unlimited, a blend of racing and MMO games which became the first racing MMO game on consoles, and was also creative director for Test Drive Unlimited 2. V-Rally 3, Test Drive Unlimited and Test Drive Unlimited 2 each reached the one million sales mark.
“To me, WRC 5 is a new challenge, with the series starting again from scratch and its release on new generation platforms,” Game Director Alain explained. “Together with Diego and the rest of our teams, we really want to bring something new to this series and we’re convinced that rally fans will love the turn we’re taking on WRC,” he added.
Bigben Interactive and Kylotonn Games would love to hear all the questions you have for Diego and Alain on the game’s official Facebook page, using the hashtag #AskAlainDiego. They will be giving their video answers very soon.