Made in France – Kylotonn

Motorsport has always remained an expensive activity which appears to be reserved for a certain caste. If the future of mechanical leisure activities raises many questions, one sector is not experiencing the crisis: that of video games. With the development of consoles and their technologies, what passed for a simple leisure activity reserved for the youngest has transformed into real virtual experiences.

Experiences that can even serve as platforms for the discovery of new talents with the development of Esports. The practice can make older generations smile, but there are few who are not bewitched by the charm of the virtual. It must be said that video games have evolved considerably in recent decades. While you had to just manage your speed and turn at the right time on the first home consoles, the new titles presented offer sensations that are closer and closer to reality, even if the most keen have to invest in equipment expensive.

The Kylotonn studios, a large part of which is based in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, are one of those players who allow all kinds of players to think they are the new Sébastien Loeb ( Ogier according to taste). This company recently integrated into the company (also French) Bigben has held the rights to the license for several years WRC and thus produced the official game of the World Rally Championship sold across the four corners of the globe. Copies of AUTOhebdo and Exhaust are placed discreetly at the entrance, recalling the company's area of ​​expertise.

The open space offices, with imitation bucket chairs, accommodate around a hundred people working hard to develop their products while meeting the growing needs of the public. “We have a center in Lyon and the largest in Paris,” explains Alain Jarniou, game director of the studio. We designed our own graphics engine in order to have more freedom of development in our products. We are constantly updating it so that it gets the maximum potential from the machines. It has now been running for a dozen years. » One of the difficulties for developers is to format a game that is adaptable on several media, whether on Playstation, Xbox, Switch or PC. “Simulation games were more reserved for computers in the past, but consoles have evolved as have the public, and we now find a whole catalog of simulation games on consoles”, he adds.

Think about everything

While the new opus, called WRC8, is scheduled for the beginning of September after last year's release of V-Rally, a more arcade-oriented game, the developers are working to present all the new features of this future edition. “Gamers” being demanding in the face of the multitude of offers available, creators must compete in ingenuity to offer new content. As a result, the WRC license has its share of advantages and disadvantages. With this contract, developers can recreate all the cars entered globally, from the JWRC to the WRC, with the official crews.

On the other hand, each car in the same category must offer identical performance so that a manufacturer is not harmed. The advantage of games rally compared to other racing games? The consoles do not have to reproduce an entire grid but a single vehicle whose rendering must be impeccable. “We benefit from data from certain manufacturers to create the cars. For others, you have to analyze photos to reproduce them identically, confirms Clotilde Barbe, the chief vehicle artist. Each model is made up of 100 polygons and another 000 are needed for the cockpit for players who prefer the interior view. » Part of this mammoth work is carried out by service providers, but the final result is corrected and verified internally.

“The hardest part is making sure the car liveries look good against the curves of the bodywork”, specifies the designer. The decoration is then placed on the bare hull. This assembly must be able to be damaged due to piloting errors. Several hundred impact points are recorded around the vehicle with different damage values ​​so that the slightest impact is visible in the right place on the bodywork. The rendering is more precise at the rear of the vehicle because this is the part that will be most observed by the player, but the entire car must be taken care of to have good homogeneity. The new opus will also offer historic cars clamored for by purists, which will strengthen the range of cars on offer.

Rendering the steering is another big challenge for designers. While the graphics are gradually approaching photo-realism, it is mainly on the sensations that the game will make the difference compared to the competition. The series of three opuses released in recent years has made it possible to refine the behavior of the vehicles in order to obtain the best balance between realism and pleasure. “We worked quite a bit with Stéphane Lefebvre to get his feedback, argues the product director. What surprised us was that the driver explained to us that the car actually braked much better, that it pivoted better in the corners. Making cars harder to drive didn't mean we were getting back to reality. WRCs are made to stick to the road. »

The proximity of the developers to the world championship also served to provide valuable renderings, as when Dani Sordo was able to test the latest version released in 2017. “He did exactly the same time in the Panzerplatte super special that he had just competed in at the German Rally, specifies Alain Jarniou. At first, however, he wasn't very excited. He explained that his car didn't really react the same way. But he made 2-3 adjustments and it worked wonderfully afterwards. »

A person is also dedicated to customizing the set-up of the cars, the slightest change having to offer a benefit or a disadvantage depending on the conditions, the surface, etc. Each parameter must be taken into account to obtain credible behavior: the wheelbase, the transmission, the sound of the vehicle where each noise must be recorded separately. You have to think about absolutely everything in a racing game. Designers must indeed take into account the different ways of playing: with the controller or with the multiple steering wheels, the latest generation of which must be recognized by the game. If 90% of players use a classic controller, the remaining 10% are often the most fan players who communicate the most about the product. And this word of mouth is widely followed by developers who use this feedback to improve their products.

Whims of the sky

The developers' other project is devoted to modeling the world championship courses. The length of the special stages is not identical to reality because the distances would be too long for the players and too complicated to reproduce, but famous passages like the Turini at Monte-Carlo are faithfully reproduced so that the player can directly identify the location on which it evolves. “We start from a topography of the places on which we add the roads. We seek to diversify them so that the player does not get bored. The objective is that we can immediately know which rally we are on. We have to tell a story that fits the atmosphere of the rallies”, explains Amaury Beyris, director of the artistic department.

New for this edition, the weather will be evolving with variable changes in conditions. The player will therefore have to anticipate the vagaries of the sky by adapting his settings and choices according to the forecasts. The whole also promises to immerse yourself in the world of rallying, well beyond simple driving, by now managing your team, your budget, etc. The end goal is to provide an experience that is both exhilarating and realistic.

“When we can, we send the team to follow the rallies so that they can imbibe the spirit of the discipline, it’s important, notes Alain Jarniou. Seeing the fervor of the fans in Poland or following all the events in streaming as has been offered since last year, it really allows us to stick with the WRC. The team has become really attached to the race and we start following the events which we reinvent in pixels. » Now imbued with the spirit of the rally, the developers of Kylotonn seem to have taken to their own game.