'Grid Autosport' finds its motorsports roots

Video-game maker Codemasters is back in the news today, this time with its next driving game for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The trailer for “Grid Autosport” appeared on YouTube on Tuesday, and it looks like the company is going back to its beginnings.

From the trailer and interviews at videogamer.com, we can see that nearly every shot features real racetracks and race cars.

"With 'Grid Autosport' we had the opportunity to make a much more focused motorsport game, a desire that many of you have expressed directly to us and a game that in spirit goes back to some of our earlier titles in terms of content and handling," said Codemasters Blog community manager Ben Walke.

Chief game designer James Nicholls said that this title builds on Grid 2, adding features that fans said were missing and taking out some of the extraneous stuff. The new game will squeeze every bit of performance out of the consoles, as well as reintroducing in-car views and pushing grid sizes up to 16 cars on track at a time.

Nicholls also told Videogamer that the game returns to a more authentic handling model, with layers of assist to turn on and off. It's still trying to straddle the line between arcade and simulation, which we think is a good place to be. Some of the challenges on the current simulators – “Gran Turismo 6,” “Forza 5” – just get tedious after a while.

In “Grid Autosport” there will be five unique styles of gameplay, which the players can complete in any order. Career mode is about racing for teams, according to Nicholls, as well as accepting contract offers, racing with a teammate and completing team targets. For now, the fictional World Series of Racing is done.

The company is working on a next-generation “Grid” game. It will use a new graphics engine called EGO, and Walke says it will “be something that justifies the 'next-generation' tag, rather than something you feel was completely possible with existing hardware but with shinier graphics.”

“Grid Autosport” comes out June 24 for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

By Jake Lingeman