Over the years, it's become increasingly difficult to summarise the various Codemasters racing series. There was a time when each game's "thing" was obvious. You had Colin McRae Rally, which was a rally game, and TOCA, which was a touring car game. Since then, we've had the DIRTs, which were about rallying, skidding ostentatiously around corners and Americans, and the GRIDs, the focus of which seemed to be "stuff on a road".
Now, Codemasters have announced Grid Autosport, which aims to focus in on a single, specific idea: racing fast cars very fast around racing tracks.
"GRID Autosport aims to move the series back in line as a more authentic racing game," writes Codemasters community manager Ben Walke . It's an interesting announcement, in that it almost reads as an admission that the series has slipped beyond the expectations of their fans.
"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," Walke writes. "We're proud of the game, really delighted with some of the great reviews for it, but we're not above admitting that 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."
It's clear that with Autosport, Codemasters want a game that acts like a true descendant of the TOCA series, with a focus specifically on motorsport. There are five 'disciplines' planned, including Touring Cars, Endurance and Street Races; and the handling is being re-tuned for a more sim-like experience. "It's definitely not a full simulation – we want it to be authentic, not clinical – but it's more towards that end of the spectrum than before," writes Walke. "If anything, we believe the handling is actually one or two steps further towards simulation than Race Driver: GRID."
Head over to the Codemasters blog for a detailed report on their plans for the new game. Grid Autosport is due out on June 27th for PC and consoles.
