Two after the release of a kind of reboot of the GRID franchise, Codemasters – now owned by Electronic Arts – had found nothing better than a very unconvincing trailer to sell us its future GRID Legends. Scripting a car game is clearly not easy, but the British studio did not seem at all inspired at the time. Fortunately, a few days ago he made available to us a nice version preview that we were able to go back for hours.
Pandemic obliges, there was still no question of finding the developers in the flesh to ask them our insidious questions or to undermine a perfectly oiled marketing speech. A question / answer session via the Internet was well organized, but the heart of this preview event around GRID Legends remained indeed this version with limited access and without multiplayer mode, but nevertheless equipped with substantial content.
“500 assholes on the starting GRID”
Since the scripted aspect of the game was at the heart of the first trailer, but that, precisely, we could not see anything during this preview, we will quickly evacuate the thing. During the Q&A session, most of the reporters actually wanted to know a bit more. It will therefore be a question of putting us in the shoes of driver n°22, a rookie who has just arrived in the Seneca Motorsport team and is destined to assist Yume Tanaka. The progress seems to have to remain completely linear and based on a series of objectives, race after race. In total, the developers speak of a mode occupying us about ten hours.
To be completely honest, we're not banking much on this aspect of the game. Oh, there will undoubtedly be a way to have fun - a little - but this tendency at Codemasters to integrate such a mode without really putting neither the means nor the talent gives it only an accessory side. The big chunk of the game remains the single/multiple content of the “dedicated” races. There, lovers of big cars should get their money's worth, at least in terms of content. It is a question of offering nine categories with, for each, dedicated vehicles for a total of 130 machines which will be able to participate in nine game modes on 22 different circuits.
On this last point, Codemasters wanted to use a number of routes already known to fans, but three new ones will appear: a circuit in the middle of London, another in the heart of Moscow and a last one, entirely imagined by the developers, located at Strada Alpine. Of course, the variety of environments and weather conditions will be there. On our preview session, we were able to taste the nice differences between a relatively “neutral” London circuit and a largely icy Moscow track. The studio took advantage of the latter to show off its mastery of reflections on frozen surfaces. Wonderful.
Fatally incomplete, our preview version was an opportunity to take stock of most of the major categories to come in the game and in particular the multiple disciplines planned by the developers from the "basic" race to the elimination event where the game gradually disqualifies latecomers until there is only one driver left. One category is reserved for electric cars while another allows you to play against the clock. The chrono mode is simply there to allow you to break records while the face-to-face opposes two teams during a test with two or four cars.
Assassin’s GRID ?
Finally, the drift and multi-class modes are undoubtedly the most “surprising”. The multi-class comes to mix completely different vehicles and add a system of handicaps so that the fastest are forced to (try to) catch up with the slowest: good luck, for example, to make your way in the middle of three huge trucks DMG Colossus when you yourself are driving a Beltra Open Wheel, a fictitious vehicle that could vaguely make you think of an Ariel Atom. For its part, drifting is obviously the return of slides - more or less controlled - in all directions.
For the latter, we had the choice between a Mazda RX-7 FD35 and a Subaru BRZ. Not necessarily fans of this style of driving, we really appreciated the lightness of the driving, the extremely rewarding aspect of the drifts over long distances and the possibility of chaining skids to increase the combo score. There is obviously no question of finding such a style of driving in the other modes and, in the game of variety, GRID Legends is very comfortable. By changing category frequently, we perceive the specificities of each other with the feeling that, to get the best times, the best results, we will still have to hang on a little.
A “reveal trailer” to present the scripted solo mode: not very inspiring, alas © © Codemasters / Electronic Arts
You've probably felt it already, but it's important to understand that GRID Legends is not about simulation. The conduct that is offered here by Codemasters involves some finesse, it requires some time to master the subtleties, but we remain in something very arcade. We perceive clear differences in weight, inertia and transmission between the different vehicles and, in the same way, the environments seem to have a role to play, but driving remains generally very permissive: it is only very rarely a question to sanction the player for a bad appreciation of his trajectory for example, and the penalties intervene only if he deliberately cuts the route.
For example, it is possible to go there with a good heart by hitting the other pilots, by pushing their car more than reason, by sending them into the background or against the railing without the game finding particular fault. In reality, we are almost encouraged to do so and we can earn "progress" points on certain actions, even if most of these points are still obtained for having taken the best trajectory or having achieved a "faultless" performance on a section. circuit. Note in passing that GRID Legends adopts the system of “sworn enemies”: other pilots to whom we have previously made miseries and who are particularly angry with us.
Between light GRID and dark GRID
Always in the same spirit a little "gets into it", the other pilots do not react that much to a successful overtaking in the rules of the art. On the other hand, if you hit them a little vigorously - even if it's absolutely not your fault - they will become your nemesis for several races! We mentioned the progress point system, it is important to emphasize, even if we were not able to test it, that it takes into account both solo play and connected races and that it does not should only be used to unlock cosmetic items. There is also no question of integrating micro-transactions into the game.
We have previously spoken of a resolutely arcade driving style, but we must point out that multiple options for assistance or difficulties come to temper our judgment a little. For example, you can only have cosmetic damage or damage that has an impact on driving. You can also opt for different levels of assistance in braking or trajectories, but even pushed to its “trenchments”, GRID Legends seems to have to remain permissive. This is not necessarily a bad thing as the other drivers can be quite aggressive in their behavior on the circuit.
“Other pilots” who can now be 21 for, therefore, a total of 22 riders when we were once limited to 16. The developers talked about a new attitude system for pilots controlled by artificial intelligence, the Choregrapher 2.0 . To be completely honest, we are not sure to have perceived a particularly notable evolution compared to the previous opuses if it is not, all the same, a certain tendency to better manage overtaking, to seek more aspiration . The developers also explained to us that their idea was to achieve more realistic behaviors, so that opponents can also make mistakes from time to time.
Tested on a particularly muscular machine (Ryzen 9 5900X, 64 GB of RAM and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti), our preview version of GRID Legends ran perfectly at 1p maintaining an animation speed of more than 440 fps. It will of course be necessary to check this on the final version and a more modest machine. From the circuits that we were able to test and from the cars glimpsed, the work of the developers does not seem to be open to criticism. No, the real question will probably be to validate or not this scripted solo mode, to check if the AI ​​pilots adopt a more varied / interesting behavior and, of course, if the multiplayer mode brings the sensations that we are entitled to wait. Our few hours on the preview version make us want to see more. That's already a pretty good sign.
Release scheduled for February 25 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
