The first series was published by Sony Computer Entertainment who owned the WRC license in the early 2000s.

The series consists of five original games released exclusively for the Sony PlayStation 2 console, and one port for the Sony handheld PSP, all based on the World Rally Championship seasons from 2001 to 2005, using official drivers, cars and locations.

These included four official WRC games based on seasons from 2010 to 2013, as well as a licensed arcade title, all of them released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

[citation needed] In July 2013 the license was picked up by the French publisher Bigben Interactive.

[2][3] EA Sports were put in charge of a partnership with Codemasters after the latter's acquisition by Electronic Arts in 2021.

World Rally Championship was released for PlayStation 2 on 30 November 2001 in Europe and 21 March 2002 in North America.

Additionally, the tracks "Come with Us/The Test" and "Star Guitar" from the Chemical Brothers album, Come with Us (2002) were also used in the game.

[5] The PSP port was jointly released by Sony Computer Entertainment (EU), Spike (JP) and Namco Bandai Games (NA) on 18 November 2005 in Europe, 9 March 2006 in Japan, and 18 April in North America.

[5] Like its predecessor, World Rally Championship is based around the 2005 season and features 30 fully deformable 2005 WRC, Evolution and Extreme spec cars.

WRC FIA World Rally Championship was released on 8 October 2010 in Europe and 14 April 2011 in Japan.

WRC 2: FIA World Rally Championship was released on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on 14 October 2011 in Europe and 16 February 2012 in Japan.

WRC Powerslide was developed by Milestone srl and released on the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam.

It is the fourth installment in Milestone's rebooted WRC series and is the official video game of the 2013 FIA World Rally Championship, featuring cars and rallies from the 2013 season, including support categories.

It is the first installment on next generation consoles and was developed by Paris-based Kylotonn and published by Bigben Interactive.

This game featured British indie rock band Bastille's song "Pompeii" in its intro.

WRC 8 was released on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PC on 10 September 2019.

Codemasters regained the WRC license in 2020 (which in turn being acquired by Electronic Arts in 2021); following this, it was rumored in 2022 that work on Dirt games had been suspended.