EA and Codemasters have revealed the next instalment in the GRID franchise at this years EA Play Live show. GRID Legends will feature a campaign and Race Creator that lets players create their own races in both track and road environments. The game will arrive on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 next year.
The game’s campaign, known as the GRID World Series, puts players in the middle of a fly-on-the-wall documentary that blends real-life footage with gameplay. Ravenwest Motorsport and their drivers, the McKanes, wants to capture a record sixth World Championship. Players must overcome internal team politics and rivalries with a dozen drivers to stop that from happening. Off the track each of the important characters will be played by actors such as Sex Education‘s Ncuti Gatwa, while on it they’ll benefit from unique driver personality AI for more unpredictable racing.
More than 100 vehicles will be available in GRID Legends, including single-seaters, big rigs, and classic touring cars. The vehicles cover a number of motorsport eras as seen by the vehicles featured in the trailer like the Shelby Cobra 289 FIA, Audi A4 Quattro BTCC, and Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro Concept. Each of these vehicles can be upgraded, although Codemasters promised more details on this at a later date.
GRID Legends will launch with 130 tracks, featuring a mix of real-life locations like Brands Hatch and Indianapolis as well as fictional favorites from previous GRID titles like San Francisco and Paris. There will be new tracks too, including the Moscow and London tracks that appeared briefly in the trailer.
As well as the campaign there will be other modes such as the fan favorite Drift events and a new race creator tool that lets players create whatever racing event they wish. Mix up the classes, pick a track, choose the number of laps and even tweak the weather conditions before taking the events online to compete against other players.
GRID Legends will be the first title in the franchise since Codemasters was acquired by EA. The game is part of the publisher’s plan to release at least one racing game each year, and GRID Legends is currently heading for release in 2022 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.
[Source: EA, PlayStation Blog]
