BHMS: The claimed realism of this game is one of the most eagerly anticipated. Just how far does this go - what happens if we, for example, strike a tree at 100km/h head on?

Warthog: In view of popular demand, the game comes with three different realism levels for car damage. Easy, Professional and Champion. Champion is truly realistic - and no other mode should be considered for the serious sim fan. If you hit a tree at 100km/h head on, your car will most likely be a write off.

BHMS: A question that is common to all our interviews. How lifelike are the car physics and how did you achieve this level of realism?

Warthog: The aim from the beginning has been to make the simulation as close to reality as possible. This meant we had to identify what mechanisms have the greatest effect on how a rally car behaves. Then we tried to model these with as much accuracy as development time and computing power allowed. This meant reading a lot of scientific papers and adopting existing methods to be suitable for real time computation.

The second part of the problem is once you have all the code running, you need proper parameters to make it behave as the car it was intended to simulate.
Here we are very thankful to the world rally teams who have provided us with plenty of information. Ranging from tyre properties to air flow through turbos. The last part is testing and setup work on the cars. We have been working closely with mechanics and a professional rally driver who on several occasion phoned to his team to ask questions like what size of anti roll bar or how much rebound damping was run on a certain rally. We went through all of this because we wanted to make a rally simulation closer to real life than anything developed to date.

BHMS: No tools for editing the game on PC have been announced. How mod-able will Richard Burns Rally be? Will racing fans be able to paint their own paint schemes, add new cars... I guess the question here is, how hard did you guys try to "secure" the code?

Warthog: It will be posssible to modify some aspects of the PC version, but to what degree we're not sure of yet.

BHMS: What kind of multiplayer modes and options will there be? What kind of options are there in the Hot-seat mode?

Warthog: The hot-seat mode lets up to four players compete on any stage of their choosing and we've also added another option to play through an entire rally. In both these modes you can race with or without Ghostcars. Unfortunately there are no online head-to-head multiplayer modes.

BHMS: Should we expect to see any further (bonus) cars beyond the announced cars? If so, what historical era will they originate from, and are there any non-4WD drivetrains making appearances?

Warthog: There are bonus cars to unlock, including a contemporary 2WD bonus car. You'll have to play the game to find out which, though!

BHMS: What are some of the more unique tuning options available in the garage and how do they affect the car performance?

Warthog: In the setup section you make changes to the cars as you would do in real life. For instance, to set the front toe of the car, you change the length of the steering rods and the toe is calculated in real time. To change caster you simply move the mounting points of the struts. The user will also be able to alter the control systems of the differentials.

BHMS: Can you briefly describe how the tire model works? What factors contribute to grip (i.e. temperature, wear, surface, load borne by each wheel)?

Warthog: The tyre model is basically a slip-based model. The force to slip angle/slip ratio curves is modified in real time depending on the conditions of the tyre and the material it is interacting with. All the factors mentioned affects the way the tyre behaves. For instance we obtained information from the tyre companies on several aspects of the tyres, such as operating temperature, grip and tyre stiffness in relation to tyre load etc. Heat transfer is also modelled and the temperature affects the tyres in different ways. For instance, the temperature of the rubber closest to the ground affects the friction level of the tyre whereas the temperature of the air inside the tyre affects the pressure and thus stiffness of the tyre.

BHMS: We know about the spectators being where they should and shouldn't be. But what about wildlife - is there any?

Warthog: We have wildlife like birds, kangaroos, deer etc, and you can actually be unfortunate enough to hit a bird and smash your windscreen (birdsplash as it's commonly called).