Neon is a growling powerhouse of a game engine that will drive the next-generation of the series’ impeccable car handling, incredibly detailed vehicles and fantastic living environments.

Neon is a multi-platform continuous technical development that’s already been in production for over 18 months with over 30 tech experts on the team. Neon is being used to build Colin McRae: DIRT from the ground up with technology developed exclusively for next-generation formats; there’s no adaptation of previous McRae tech in DIRT.

Neon will ensure that DIRT’s exhilarating mix of off-road race events will be compounded into one adrenaline rush of a video game with playability that’s true to the Colin McRae series.

With more than 40 officially licensed vehicles covering 12 car class categories, fans of the McRae series will get their fix of throwing official 2WD, 4WD, Classic and RWD cars, including Colin McRae’s prototype R4 and Travis Pastrana’s X Games-winning Subaru Impreza, around the most challenging and treacherous rally stages around the world.

Says Gavin Cheshire, Vice President of Codemasters Studios: “Neon delivers an engine that provides us with so much more scope and possibilities than an update of existing tech would have ever allowed. The most obvious result is in the visual detail and physics that produce incredible particle effects. Neon makes it possible to go into seemingly minute detail but will create the most realistic and involving environments in the racing genre.”

The detail Neon provides enables the team to model locations and environments as accurately as possible, providing each with a unique look and feel, right down to the effects of the wind.

Using real-time physics to model air movements, everything will be affected by the wind: exhaust smoke, trees, foliage, trackside flags, rainfall and the vehicles themselves. A car will create an air rush wake that will have an effect on everything it passes and also generate a real-time slipstream.

Impact from damage will see metal crumple, glass smash and everything that you collide with in the environment will be destroyed in a realistic way. Small trees snap and bend, grass can be flattened, wood will splinter and stone will be smashed, it’ll even wrap a car around a tree if the crash is serious enough.

As the evolution of the world’s favourite rally game series, Colin McRae: DIRT is coming in 2007 for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.