GRID: Autosport unveiled by Codemasters

Codemasters have today unveiled GRID: Autosport, a new instalment in the GRID racing series.

The developers revealed that the game will be hitting stores on June 24th in America and June 27th in Europe for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Racing alongside a teammate, players must overcome key rivals and satisfy team sponsors in ferocious races where every pass and position counts.

“GRID: Autosport will bring alive the experience of becoming a professional racing driver in a new world of contemporary and classic motorsport,” a press release read.

“Drawing in spirit from classic Codemasters titles such as the TOCA series, developed in conjunction with community feedback and retaining the core GRID focus of ‘being all about the race’, gamers will experience a world of breadth, of depth, of intensity and of course, of the excitement that only racing cars can deliver.”

Series of cars include Touring, Hyper, Endurance GT, Prototypes, Single-Seaters, Super Modified and Drift cars and also features over 100 routes across 22 locations.

The in-car view has returned due to demand from the GRID community and handling has been improved for authenticity whilst new challenges will be added every week to the game’s online multiplayer mode, which currently host over 1 million members.

“The design philosophy behind GRID Autosport was to create a really focussed racing game,” said James Nicholls, Chief Games Designer, GRID: Autosport. “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 Stranger, of AutoSport magazine, who acted as a consultant for Codemasters, said: “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.”

“Through close co-operation with Codemasters, we are breaking new ground on optimising GRID: Autosport running on Intel Architecture,” said Richard Huddy, Chief Gaming Evangelist, Intel.

“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.”

The first screenshots were released, as shown below, and a gameplay video was also released, shown above.