Codemasters has explained the approach they took in the development of GRID Autosport. Fans who disliked GRID 2 should feel heartened, since they’ve been making it with the help of fan feedback since the start.
To be clear, Codemasters didn’t just take every suggestion out there. This would of course be impossible given fans will have different suggestions, and so they were careful to pick out common, valid complaints, but also to acknowledge relevant, if less vocalized, concerns.
The most radical change Codemasters was related to complaints about how cars were turned into unlocks in GRID 2. Turning the idea on its head, now they set it up so that you bond with your car, putting the weight of stat progression on it.
Overall, however, Codemasters heard the call for a motorsports game, over another racing sim. They collected literally hundreds of comments, and vetted them before bringing these ideas to motoring journalists and professional drivers. In the end, they went for a highly authentic racing experience.
GRID: Autosport’s success hinges on getting handling exactly right, and Codemasters went about this very meticulously. They started with real world values, and then collating data from videos, and actually got into the cars 1sthand. The end result? They captured the character of each car in-game, and not just the raw data.
This approach required many revisions, as they took into account comparative performance of other cars, and adjusted appropriately at every step of the way. They also made extensive use of cameras, and added values for wear and tear, but most important of all, they had some of their own players try it 1st hand so that they knew if they got it right or not.
You can get even more details on GRID: Autosport’s development here. The game comes to Windows, PS3, and Xbox 360 this June 27.
