Codemasters have today unveiled the next installment in the GRID series, GRID Autosport.
GRID Autosport has been fully focused on from fan feedback in previous GRID titles and looks to get the series firmly back into its roots as a more authentic racing game. The favorite Cockpit view also makes a return in GRID Autosport, whilst also bringing a dashboard view.
The development team have put a lot of work this year into the handling, in turn giving out a more authentic handling style. Although not full simulation, GRID Autosport will be authentic enough to really make you believe you are behind the wheel. Each car in the game will have it’s own unique personality, just like in real life. For example, pick up a WTCC spec Touring Car and it’ll feel completely different to a Formula 3 car.
Racing Disciplines is another feature that has been worked on. These are different types of motorsport, for which the game includes five. A touring car race and an Endurance race will come needing a completely different approach, style and strategy. Endurance races will require players to manage tyre wear, whilst Street Races will be all about reacting on the fly on claustrophobic streets through cities with unpredictable changes in elevations and drift cars are all about demonstrating your car control. There will be a dedicated amount of series within each discipline including Touring Cars, GT, Single-Seaters, Muscle Cars, Drift, Supercars, Hypercars, Time Attack, Prototypes and many more.
GRID Autosport will come featuring 22 locations with over 100 grid routes. These include iconic circuits to series favorites, giving GRID Autosport more circuits than both GRID and GRID 2 combined!. The career mode is also back which lets players become a professional racing driver, whilst having the ability to join and switch teams, fulfil sponsor demands and beat rivals. Due to much request, the ability to race with a teammate is back in GRID Autosport, and your teammate can attack the cars ahead or defend their position. All this is handled by a simple button press on the controller and it’s a feature that will also allow you to request information from your team engineer. You will be able to race in the disciplines that only you enjoy, giving you freedom of choice along the way.
One of the features that players will be using alot is the Paddock menu. You will find yourself here before a race, giving you pre-match options which include qualifying and practice. You will also be able to tune your car before racing. Tuning options include brake bias, differential, downforce, gears, ride height and suspension at both the front and back.
James Nicholls, Chief Games Designer, GRID Autosport stated:
The design philosophy behind GRID Autosport was to create a really focussed racing game, We’ve jettisoned anything that doesn’t support the on-track competition and we’ve chosen a selection of cars and tracks that will give players a range of different racing experiences. That variety is crucial. There are five very distinct ways to race – this isn’t a game where basically every race is the same and the cars and tracks change. You need to adjust your tactics and learn different techniques to succeed in each racing discipline and each car has its own character too. Our AI will act and react in different ways depending not just on how you race, but the style of racing you are competing in and that’s vital in authentically capturing the feel of say, Touring Cars compared to Open-Wheel Racing.
Simon Strang, AUTOSPORT magazine added:
TOCA Race Driver 3 was an office favourite back in the day, so when Codemasters said they wanted to take the series back to its core fan-base we got stuck in to help, Many of our guys that helped with the handling are either former racers and / or active amateurs, but their deep and ingrained knowledge of all levels of motorsport, from so many weekends spent in far-flung paddocks meant that Codemasters were able to extract aspects of knowledge and understanding that otherwise would slip by. The other thing is that while you want the cars to feel authentic, you don’t necessarily want to spend hours mastering it – that’s what real racing is for. You want that experience of racing. We hope that the balance is struck right for the players of GRID Autosport and that is certainly what we aimed to help with. The diversity of cars and tracks is another factor we were delighted by and the return of traditional touring car series and classic tracks is great news for racing fans.
The multiplayer section is again powered by the fantastic RaceNet, allowing players to form Racing Clubs and race under team colours against other clubs in the community. Receive new challenges every week with the new and evolved Discipline Challenge, track your stats including your complete vehicle history and climb weekly and persistent leaderboards.
The PC version of the game will offer 4K textures, 4K output support and delivers a 1080P, 60 frames per second racing experience. However, the game has been optimised for performance excellence on the widest range of hardware for the widest range of PC players yet. The Codemasters PC development team has also benefited from a relationship with Intel that has delivered a range of further benefits for players on Intel hardware, including for the first time, tablets. Richard Huddy, Chief Gaming Evangelist, Intel stated:
Through close co-operation with Codemasters, we are breaking new ground on optimising GRID Autosport running on Intel Architecture, Put simply, we have expanded the range of devices GRID Autosport will support – the game performs beautifully on PCs with processor graphics solutions and for the first time on Intel Atom™ based tablets too. It’s a game changer in this respect, as AAA console quality gaming arrives on Intel powered Windows Tablets – bringing truly dramatic results. At the top end of the performance spectrum, GRID Autosport is setting the bar higher too. Order Independent Transparency, Volumetric shadows and advanced HDR rendering powered by Intel’s Pixel Shader Ordering Extensions are just some of the advanced technical features that serve to put gamers in the race like never before.
A GRID Autosport Black Edition has also been announced. This includes includes the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Coupé Black Series car, Black Edition White Ravenwest Liveries, 20 Black Edition online livery patterns and 10 new premium sponsors with objectives. It can be pre-ordered from GAME here.
GRID Autosport is set to be released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on June 27th. A trailer has also been released. Be sure to let us know your thoughts on the GRID Autosport announcement via the comment section below.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5RIoJgfQJg[/youtube]
