Games
After a long lay-off, Codemasters is finally bringing the cult racer GRID back to the fore. We caught up with the game's director to find out how they plan to take pole-position among racing games.
In previous console generations, racing games were one of the most popular genres and the scene enjoyed a variety of styles, from the casual drifting of Ridge Racer to simulation-grade experiences like Gran Turismo. In recent years however, as games have become more expensive to make, driving games have dwindled in number, leaving an opportunity for beloved franchises of yesteryear to make a comeback.
That's exactly what veteran developers Codemasters hope to do with GRID, a reboot of the TOCA series they hope will bring the series back to its heyday of the mid-2000s. To Chris Smith, game director for GRID, it's an opportunity to return to the game's roots as an authentic motorsport game – one that lacks the looming wall of difficulty that some more realism-oriented racers can present to newcomers.
As Smith explains, Codemasters have targeted the depth and feel of the original Race Driver: GRID as a goal for this reboot, as it allowed for anyone to pick-up the controller and play without spinning out constantly, while mastering it still required care and grace. It also introduced the series’ signature 'rewind', widely-imitated across the genre, which allows a player on the verge of committing a race-ending error to reverse time so that they can attempt to right it, before they end up crashing into a barricade.
While that might sound easy enough, in the E3 demo that we played, even when you get a second chance at a tricky turn there's no guarantee that you won't mess it up again. "We see GRID as an accessible motorsport racing game," Smith says. "We're certainly not full arcade, but we provide players options to turn-off assists and increase the difficulty to be very sim. We tend to say this is a game where casual players can go for fun and sim players go for serious fun."
While the series has always tried to maintain this balancing act, Smith says that the level of success varied with previous entries in the series, depending on who you ask.
"GRID 2 was a great game, but fans of the original thought it lacked depth in its handling model and was too arcade in feel, although there was still a lot of love for it," he says. "The third instalment, GRID: Autosport, returned with the more sim and motorsport focus that fans of the original enjoyed. We called the new game GRID to represent the reboot, targeting it as a return to form of the original – a game with an emphasis on showcasing the best of motorsport, with robust and deep handling models, all while being accessible to sim and casual players alike."
Smith notes that the emphasis on quiet excellence rather than bold crashes of more simulation-oriented racers holds a certain appeal for enthusiasts, but more casual players are hungry for a more dynamic experience. Rather than what he calls a "parade of cars that the player slowly overtakes to finish first," Smith says that GRID aims to be slightly less predictable in the moment-to-moment, focussing on the narratives that develop naturally over the course of a race or series, which the team calls "racing stories".
For example, the computer-controlled drivers each have their own personality and driving style and might even become your nemesis if you cut them off too many times. According to Smith, Codemasters aims to emphasise the chaotic nature of real-life motorsport to create a game where "anything can happen". To achieve this goal, the game has a 'choreographer' that emulates the sorts of mistakes that drivers might make in a real-life competition, which lead to fiery crashes or spin-outs, as well as mechanical failures, like wheels detaching or fellow racers slamming into one another.
As with previous entries in the series, this new GRID will be absolutely full of events for single-player fans to devour. Smith says they also plan to introduce split-screen after launch, as fans have specifically requested that feature time and again. For die-hard racing fans looking for a dynamic challenge, or more casual players looking to take a dip into motorsport, this GRID reboot looks to be one of the most promising games of the year – let's just hope they stick the landing. "Our goal is for anyone who plays GRID to simply have fun. That's it, really," Smith says.
GRID comes to PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 13.
