14 DAY TRIAL // Codemasters has offered a glimpse at the development of its upcoming Grid Autosport racing game, showing just how much of an impact the change in the handling system had on other mechanics, like the AI.
Grid 2 appeared almost a year ago, and developer Codemasters was immediately flooded with lots of feedback from racing fans, highlighting different zones where they thought the game still needed work or an outright overhaul.
One key area where Codemasters had an opportunity to improve was the overall handling system for all the cars in the game.
According to a new blog post on the official website, the handling system is really important to a racing title and "can quite literally make or break the game."
However, improving the handling in Grid 2 meant tweaking some core aspects of the whole system and that had a ripple effect on the rest of the game.
"On the one hand we have a solid, authentic handling model. On the other hand, we have a new improved handling model, which we created following feedback from our community, and which we’ve tested with journalists, members of the team and racing drivers."
The improved system mostly focused on changing the way the grip of the car falls, thereby producing wheelspin. Grid 2 had a pretty sudden loss of traction, and in Autosport the studio wants that loss to be more gradual.
"We’ve traditionally had quite a ‘cliff’ here, with grip falling away very quickly. Based on some of the observations of our community playing the game, we decided that if there was a slightly more gradual falloff you’d have the chance to correct mistakes and more room to push to the limit with each car."
However, this change meant that all the 80+ cars in the game had to be retuned, to make sure that their specific handling didn't feel off, particularly when it came to rear-wheel drive ones, like muscle cars.
It also meant that Codemasters had to reprogram the whole AI system, from its behavior to the times it can set during races on each of the circuits in the game.
While the job was tough and the time for retuning the game was short, the studio is thrilled with its decision and wants to delight gamers with the better handling inside Grid Autosport.
The title will debut for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on June 24 in North America and June 27 in Europe and the rest of the world.