5 Reason GRID Legends is the redemption arc the series needs!

A few days ago at EA Play, racing game fans were treated to an unexpected debut of GRID Legends, the latest instalment in the critically-acclaimed racing franchise. This title has a lot riding on its shoulders; while Race Driver GRID launched in 2008 with hugely positive reception, none of the sequels have been able to capture the spark the original had. However, Legends appears to be taking a new approach and bringing a whole host of changes that could potentially take this game to the front of the pack. Here's 5 of them:

A captivating story

This is the biggest talking point of Legends so far; the inclusion of a story mode with Full-Motion Video cutscenes. Taking inspiration from F1 2021's Braking Point (which in turn took inspiration from Netflix's Drive To Survive), the story mode is expected to tale the tale of the player taking on various characters, including Nathan McKane from the infamous Ravenwest team, to become the GRID Series World champion. We have seen characters in prior GRID titles, but this is the first time we can match faces and personalities to them - this brings a whole new dimension to how players engage with the campaign and I'm certainly looking forward to how it turns out.

While FMV is new to the GRID series, ToCA Race Driver games featured cutscenes in the very early days of motion capture.

New locations

With over 130 track configurations the drama of competitive racing will follow you more places around the world than ever before. Jokes aside, that number provides a promising prospect to the number of tracks we will see overall; to put that into perspective, GRID 2019 featured 99 configurations with 16 tracks (including DLC). It's fair to assume the number of environments we will see at launch is likely to be more than double what GRID 2019 had at launch (12 locations), including the new environments we saw in the trailer (London, Moscow and Strada Alpina).

Bigger car roster than ever before

GRID has always been known to favour quality over quantity by featuring a small but wide variety of cars spanning multiple disciplines. With GRID Legends, we will be treated with both quantity and quality with the total car count reaching 3-digits for the first time in the series. Fan favourites, such as Touring Cars, GT, Vintage racers and open-wheelers to name a few, will be making a return. However, there are also new vehicles to play with including electric vehicles, stadium trucks and full-size race trucks. What's more, all vehicles will be customisable with custom liveries and upgrades to make each ride truly your own.

More ways to play

Compounded with the addition of new classes, GRID Legends will bring game modes from prior games, as well as all new ones. One more omission from GRID 2019 was the lack of drift mode and thanks to the snippet of the modified Mitsubishi Evo kicking up smoke clouds, it is making a welcome return in the upcoming release. In terms of new game modes, we have a new boost mode that will provide electric vehicles with a speed boost as they drive through checkpoints. Alongside traditional races, expect to see Time Trials, Eliminator Races and special "showcase" events.

Cross-gen capabilities

With the ongoing semiconductor shortage and troubles people have in securing a next-gen console, it only makes sense for GRID Legends to be a cross-gen title. While that does limit how much the game can take advantage of next-gen power, GRID 2019 was hardly a bad looking game to begin with. One massive advantage being cross-gen has is being accessible to a much wider player base. Also worth noting cross-gen multiplayer is supported which should present you with active lobbies, whichever platform you are on.

GRID Legends is confirmed to be launching in 2022. No narrower timeframe has been given beyond that so far, but given how many racing games are set to be launching that year (including Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo 7, Test Drive Unlimited 3 and EA's own Need For Speed), expect it to be sooner rather than later.