Announced at EA Play 2021, GRID Legends will be released at the end of February on PC and consoles. Presented as the most ambitious episode of the saga, we had the opportunity to play it for four hours last December in order to get a first idea of the potential of its gameplay, its content and its technical performance.
A few days ago, Codemasters and Electronic Arts offered us a new opportunity to approach the title before its launch through a Preview build that ran in Very High configuration on a PC equipped with an Intel Core processor. i5-9400F (2.9 GHz), an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, 16 GB of RAM, a 1080p screen and an Xbox One controller.
This time, we were able to discover the prologue as well as the first six chapters of the “Driven to Glory” scripted mode, which represents approximately one hour of play. This article aims to give you a brief opinion on what we have seen and thought of the start of this campaign.
GRID World Series: Drive to Survive
Produced by Allen Leitch (Call of Duty: Cold War) and written by Brad Kane (Ghost of Tsushima), “Driven to Glory” draws a lot of inspiration from the production Formula 1: Drive to Survive from Netflix. If this was already the case in the campaign “Point de Rupture” of F1 2021, especially in terms of storytelling but with a more cinematic approach in mind, Codemasters wants to turn fully towards the documentary style with this scripted mode from A to Z.
The player is invited to embody Pilot 22, a rookie that we should always see wearing a helmet and whose debut in the GRID World Series will be followed. Confined to the status of outsider, this character will have to quickly prove himself on the track in order to integrate Seneca Racing. Led by Marcus Ado, this team in great difficulty can count on the talent of Yume Tanaka to survive but is struggling to find a second driver worthy of the name.
You will therefore have to show that you deserve to obtain and keep this cursed seat by accomplishing objectives during various events (just crossing the finish line, finishing in a specific position or in front of a specific competitor, etc.) until you can Compete against the almighty Ravenwest team and rise to the top of the discipline.
A nice experience in perspective?
While the base pitch is far from revolutionary for a racing game, that doesn’t mean it won’t be effective on release day. During this first hour of play, we have seen that the British studio has made real efforts to ensure that “Driven to Glory” has strong assets in its possession.
This includes the use of advanced virtual production methods, similar to those used in the series The Mandalorian from Disney, and a good balance between the gameplay phases and those where the illusion of watching a documentary is quite successful. Other positive points, contrary to what the various trailers suggested, the writing of the characters and the dialogues seems fair, sober and coherent and the sequences never seemed too overplayed to us.
However, the level of quality of a production can quickly change if you don’t pay enough attention to certain details that can disturb the public to the point of sometimes nullifying all the work done by the production team. And that is unfortunately the case here.
For some unknown reason, Codemasters made the decision to remove the real voices of the actors and actresses in order to perfectly synchronize the VF with the movements of their mouths. A logical design choice when making a film or a series but which makes no sense in the context of a documentary.
As proof, in Formula 1: Drive to Survive, the VF of a driver, a team boss or a journalist is superimposed on his original voice which remains in the background without being suppressed. In GRID Legends, this is not the case and this has the unfortunate consequence of making the staging wobbly. The whole thing rings false and the feeling of “realism” in which the spectator is immersed is broken.
You will tell us, if it does not suit us, we only have to set the audio to English and activate the subtitles in French. Problem, the Preview build did not offer us this option. Either we could play entirely in French or in English. It’s frustrating.
Another concern, if the filmed sequences and the gameplay phases offered a very satisfactory visual rendering, the few in-game cinematics present had not yet all benefited from the same care. Hopefully it will be different in a month.
In conclusion
Complementing its enjoyable arcade ride and the richness promised by its content, “Driven to Glory” seems to have several arguments up its sleeve that might help. GRID Legends to live up to its ambitions while making a name for itself among the many releases at the start of 2022.
However, beware of the presence of several defects that could greatly harm the experience offered by this scripted mode, especially if they are visible and audible over the long term. Fingers crossed that the necessary adjustments will be made by February 25, the day the title launches on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.