Dirt 3 arrived on May 24, 2011, for PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360, built and published by Codemasters. It was the first game in the series to drop the Colin McRae name. That break carried weight. The rally formula did not need the marquee, and Dirt 3 found other reasons to exist.
Trailer, via dirt3game.
Ken Block and the Gymkhana Mode
The headline addition is Gymkhana, a confined area packed with stunt opportunities where the goal is to land as many as possible inside a time limit. Ken Block is in the game, alongside Tanner Foust, Liam Doran, Kris Meeke, Sébastien Ogier, Sébastien Loeb and Mohammed Ben Sulayem. Gymkhana is the mode that separates Dirt 3 from the rally games before it, and it is the strongest reason to pick this up over its predecessor.
Drift tournaments are the other new mode. Drifting rewards patience and throttle control, but the scoring can be hard to read, and a clean run can lose to a scrappy one. That is a complaint, not a finding.
Six Modes, One Career
The career remains the heart of Dirt 3. Players tune cars, enter events and earn experience points that unlock new vehicles. Six race modes run through it:
- Rally — point-to-point stages with a co-driver reading pacenotes.
- Rallycross — looped circuits mixing gravel and tarmac, multiple drivers, first across the line wins.
- Trailblazer — hillclimb-style point-to-point runs with no co-driver.
- Landrush — stadium trucks and buggies on looped gravel circuits.
- Drift tournaments — the new scoring events.
- Gymkhana — stunt runs against the clock.
Every mode carries bonus goals that pay extra experience when met. That structure is what keeps the career from flattening into a checklist.
What the Co-Driver Actually Does
Rally is where Dirt 3 is most itself. The player does not drive alone. A front-seat passenger calls the turns and warns of crashes ahead. Trailblazer strips that passenger out, and the difference is not cosmetic. Without pacenotes you are reading the road cold at speed.
The game ships with 98 courses, though some are variations on the same route. That number is generous on paper and thinner in practice. The spread across Asia, Africa, Europe and North America gives the environments range, and rain and snow are among the game’s new features.
| Mode | Co-driver | Track type | Vehicles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rally | Yes | Point-to-point | Rally cars |
| Trailblazer | No | Point-to-point | Rally cars |
| Rallycross | Not stated | Looped circuit | Rally cars |
| Landrush | Not stated | Looped gravel circuit | Trucks and buggies |
Flashbacks return from Dirt 2. You can rewind a mistake up to five times at any difficulty, and each use costs reputation points. Hardcore mode removes the safety net entirely: cockpit view only, no driver assists. That is the hard way to play, and not the way to start.
Replays upload straight to YouTube.
The 3 Million Keys
In September 2011, reports surfaced that a network security problem on an AMD promotional website had exposed 3 million Dirt 3 keys to the public, usable through Steam and posted around the internet. That belongs in the record.
The real question is whether Dirt 3 holds up as the series’ clean break from Colin McRae. The McRae name was never the draw — the driving was — and Dirt 3 proves it by adding Gymkhana, Hardcore mode and weather without losing the rally core. Dirt 4 followed in June 2017 and inherited this foundation.
Dirt 3 is not flawless. The 98-course figure oversells itself, drift scoring is muddy, and the bonus-goal structure can feel like homework. None of that touches the driving. Fifteen years on, the modes it introduced still hold up.
Score: 8.6 of 10, from the IGDB critic aggregate of 7 outlets.
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