The Swedish snow in particular is utterly frightening in the fastest cars. It would be tantalising to see what the Finnish and Safari rallies would play like in this incredible build, though the five locations DiRT 4 visits encompass dozens of stages and cover a rich range of surfaces and conditions. Fortunately, the rewards for improving are steady and ongoing. It’s like a throwback to nineties rally racers: this isn’t something you’ll master in a couple of runs, it takes a lot of practice. A lot of time can be saved learning which corners can be cut and to what degree. In some of the Powys valleys, you’ll find dangerous dips into the trees, which can easily catch out the unprepared, whilst there’s also adverse camber, ‘deceptive’ corners and ‘line’ commands that see the player having to judge the optimum approach to a sequence of small kinks that ultimately lead straight on. You can almost feel the gravel crunching under the wheels, or the tyres screeching on tarmac. The handling is sublime, the feedback you get from each divot, each elevation change and terrain transition, the small but important factors behind how you tackle each corner. When you really go for it, DiRT 4 is one of the most exhilarating, breathtakingly brilliant racing games there has ever been.

The balance is on a knife-edge the player must learn to trust the co-driver’s calls as you crest a hill at 120mph, appreciating the limits of your car’s cornering speeds and grip. Overly tentative driving has its pitfalls and can see the player shedding time. That said, slow and steady does n’t necessarily win the race, either. R ally stages can stretch as far as nine miles and you don’t want to get overly adventurous and smash your car during the early parts of a stage. S teeling yourself is the key to getting the most from DiRT 4, g auging r isk and reward is a major factor. Loathed as I am to draw attention to gimmicky, motivational, hashtag-friendly slogans, it’s a pretty accurate one. “ Be Fearless”, t hat’s what the blurb on the box tells you. It remains a formidable challenge, just not as impenetrable. D ifficulty tweaks and expanded options allow mere mortals to be competitive and this is a big step in the right direction, as DiRT Rally ’s metronomic, super-competitive opponents meant it was easy to feel cut adrift, even after clean runs.

Whether its jostling with opponents on tight circuits, or battling the clock on attritional special stages that test your mettle and your concentration, DiRT 4 is a gorgeous racer. It also sees the return of a much- improved, less long-winded version of the Rallycross mode, as well as introducing new Landrush and Historic Rally options into the mix. It retains its magnificent Ego game engine, as well as a predominant focus on classic, challenging rally stages. Strangely then, DiRT 4 is, by all intents and purposes, a sequel to DiRT Rally. It offered lightweight fun but little substance and with the introduction of the seemingly separate DiRT Rally in 2015, the main series appeared to have been sacrificed as a populist option. With the release of DiRT Showdown came something of a low ebb. All very slick, very commercialised and not at all where the series was at in its Colin McRae Rally heyday. With all the pops ‘n’ whistles of X-Games gymkhana came a new-found flirtation with extreme sports, lurid liveries, sponsors more naturally associated with skateboarding than rallying and Ken Block repeatedly telling you to ‘You t ube’ your best performances. Just for a little while, it appeared the series had lost its way a little. Not only a stunning rally racer, DiRT 4 also has to count as something of a surprise, too.

Dirt 4 clean stage