Codemasters have announced a new game in the GRID series called GRID Autosport. It is deliberately not called GRID 3.
They have realised, that GRID 2 was not what their fans wanted, so now they are reaching back all the way to the popular TOCA series.
“On release of GRID 2, I think it’s fair to say that through listening to you guys and a after a substantial amount of reflection, we hadn’t quite achieved everything we set out to do…we made a few decisions that perhaps we shouldn’t have, and perhaps moved some of the aspects of the game too far away from our core fanbase.”
That combined with their notes of what was wrong in GRID 2 (that must have been a long list) should in theory give us, racing fans the ultimate racing game. Worry not. It will not be a hardcore simulator, but it should be much more closer to TOCA and the original Race Driver: GRID than Need for Speed. As I like to call these games: it will be a simcade racer.
The fans of the original game can be pleased to hear that they have abandoned the arcady handling model of GRID 2. It should now be in the veins of the original GRID, but rather a more advanced version of it. They are trying to make every class feel different not only by their handling, but the way races work aswell. We can expecting a much more contact heavy, pack racing in the touring class than in GP3. Hopefully.
“If anything, we believe the handling is actually one or two steps further towards simulation than Race Driver: GRID, to give you an idea.”
Codemasters promised 22 tracks to race on, the majority of which are racing circuits, spiced up with some claustrophobic city races, where every mistake can be the last. Over the 22 locations they will offer more than 100 routes (oh, the reverse races).
Codemasters is also promising a brand new career mode, where you have to fight your way up to the top, racing trough many leagues. A more advanced version of team-mates are also coming back from GRID. We will have the ability to do full race weekends. I can probably imagine something similar as in the F1 game series for a career.
“Yes, we have an in-car view, two in fact.”
There is also drift racing, for anyone who likes it. It looks cool, but I never really enjoyed it in any game so far.
Hopefully Codemasters will not mess up this time. If we can get half of the things promised working, than it should be an amazing simcade racing game and we can finally forgive Codemasters for GRID 2.
We even have a release date: June 27th. PC/Xbox360/PS3. I am officially excited.
Read the official post here.
Trailer:
