Without further ado, start up the game and you will be thrown straight into your first race. By the end of this race, you should have got to grips with how the cars handle and you can adjust your difficulty settings from here on out.
Welcome to your Career
Career mode consists of 124 individual race events spanning five chapters, concluding with a one-on-one race against your 'mentor', AJ.
We'll be aiming to get as many medals as possible across the career, though getting three medals on each event is not necessary to complete all achievements.
To get three medals in standard race events will mean simply coming in first. You get one medal for just finishing the event, with the exception of "Main Events" which we will get to later on.
For Pathfinder Events you will need to beat a par time, and in Gymkhana events you will need to beat the par score.
If you miss out on getting the full three medals in a race, I would suggest moving on to the next event regardless - you should still comfortably get enough medals to unlock all the chapters.
Race Types
DiRT 5 has eight different race types which are all variants of circuit and point-to-point races, across varying terrains. The games modes you'll be racing in are as follows:
Rally Raid
Using the best cars the rally world has to offer, Rally Raid's are circuit races on dirt tracks. These are the bread and butter of the game and the game type you will see most of.
Stampede
Similar to Rally Raid, but now with trucks! You'll be getting very messy as you race through tighter dirt tracks with more turns, usually in the rain, using heavy trucks as your vehicle of choice.
Land Rush
Snow and sand are the names of the game here. Grab a buggy and throw yourself around these tracks as quickly as possible.
Ultra Cross
Combining all the elements from the previous disciplines into one, Ultra Cross will see you taking control of modern rally cars whilst you throw yourself around mixed-terrain tracks whilst battling the elements.
Sprint
Oval circuit racing is the name of the game with these. Sprint races take place over lots of laps on short tracks, and also feature the new 'Sprint' car - which can only turn left!
Ice Breaker
As the name suggests, you will be driving a range of cars on ice-covered tracks, sometimes with added snow thrown in. Get the traction control on, and blast your way around the circuits.
Gymkhana
If you've played DiRT 3 you'll know what to expect here - Gymkhana is 'gymnastics for cars'. In open areas, you'll be tasked with gaining a high score by performing tricks such as doughnuts, drifts, slaloms and jumps, with multipliers for keeping chains going.
Pathfinder
Finally, we come to pathfinder. You will be tasked with climbing rocky, uneven terrain using a specialised buggy. These are designed to be slower than the other races, and going full-throttle will work against you whilst you take on mountainsides and quarries to reach the final checkpoint.
Throwdowns
As you progress through the career, you will unlock these one-on-one races against the 'champions' of each race discipline. These unlock at intervals throughout career mode. There are no achievements tied to completing these, but if you are going for 100% on the game or just like to collect new things, you can unlock some special gear by completing them!
A quick note on throwdowns: it is not known what is exactly required for throwdowns to unlock, and in fact, it seems to be slightly different for each individual. It does seem to hinge on two things though:
- the total number of events you complete in career;
- the number of events you complete in each race discipline, as well as a possible total of medals.
This is why I suggest trying to get as many gold medals as possible, to save hassle and ensure that we don't need to go back and replay events.
Chapter 1: Ignition (Pink)
Number of events: 16
I would suggest starting from the top of each column and working your way down the list in order to ensure every event gets done. Once an event is complete, you will see the number of medals on the left of the race tab.
As you do this, you will be given a brief introduction to each of the eight race types. When prompted to buy a car in each class, I would go for the one with an S on performance, as handling on most cars is identical. You will earn more than enough money by completing events to get the best car in each category quickly.
Enjoy Gymkhana?
Then you are in for a treat! When you fire up your first Gymkhana event in Chapter 1, be wary that we have an achievement to get for scoring 30,000 points in a single Gymkhana event. I would suggest using the excellent YouTube video guide by cooshti.
Essentially, you want to head to the tall fire column from the start and do two full doughnuts, earning you 2000 points each and upping your multiplier to x2. Once you have that, head over to the purple 'burnout' pad and repeatedly spin in circles to earn 2000 points per go. This can be tight, but once you have the doughnuts down, the rest is easy. Repeat this event until you get the following achievement:
Stuntmasta'Scored at least 30,000 points in a Career Gymkhana event
Main Events
The final column of events in each tier are the "Main Events" - you will need to complete at least one of these to progress to the next chapter, and you must finish in the top three in order to progress. This shouldn't be an issue as we are aiming for first anyway, but just be wary and restart if you don't think you can get top three in one of these. You can tell which ones are the main events, as the background will change to the next colour when you scroll past them, and the graphic on the right will read Main Event.
After completing all 16 events in Chapter 1, you should have the following achievements:
Chapter 2: Acceleration (Yellow)
Number of events: 17
Continue on and you should get some audio cues from AJ that you have a "throwdown burning a hole in your pocket" - this is good as it means that you have started to unlock the throwdowns. Don't worry though, you don't need to race any of these to get the achievement.
By the end of this chapter you will unlock:
Chapter 3: Velocity (Blue)
Number of events: 29
We've now got a huge chunk more events, but same applies - keep going down each column and finishing each event in order.
At the end of chapter three you will get:
It is also highly likely that you will get the following as well for hitting a million in earnings and level 50:
Chapter 4: Showdown (Orange)
Number of events: 32
Again, plough through and you will unlock the following:
Chapter 5: Red Zone (Red)
Number of events: 30
This is it, the home stretch, just keep going with events, and at the end, you're "Main Events" will be simple one-on-one races against Bruno Durand (if you haven't been listening to the radio, he is the games 'antagonist' as such).
Upon beating the first of these main events you will get:
But wait, there's more...
You now have one final race to complete against AJ, netting you:
If you have completed and won all the events (or a large chunk of them), then you should also unlock the following at some point during chapter five:
That's it for career, now on to Playgrounds...
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