GRID Legends Review: Variety Fueled Racing Thrills
Reviewed on PlayStation 5 . Special thanks to EA and Codemasters for providing a review code.
When Codemasters rebooted the GRID franchise after a half-decade hiatus back in the simple times of 2019, it was met with quite critical reception both from fans and critics alike, for a multitude of reasons. Despite Codie’s signature solid gameplay quite literally driving the game, bizarre physics, lacklustre progression, disappointing multiplayer and a repetitive career were all pain points plaguing the reboot, on top of a lack of variety.
From my early previews and now having spent roughly 20 hours with the final game, it’s clear Codies have taken that feedback to heart, and aimed to go above and beyond with GRID Legends – offering up a solid racing package with much needed gameplay improvements that not only addresses those areas but exceeds and excites.
If you’ve played any Codemasters game you’d know their titles are revered for their solid driving mechanics, and that continues to be the case with GRID Legends – especially with some much-needed work from GRID 2019. Cars feel smooth, reactive and grippy to drive, with each discipline having its own unique style, including Drift which is easy to pick up, exciting once you master and my most enjoyable thing to do in Legends. Oh, and curbs won’t spin you out anymore too!
Races feel exciting to play with the added addition of reactive race music adding to the background thrill (despite weirdly being disabled in Career events during the writing of this review), coupled with beautiful, crisp 4K 60fps visuals on PlayStation 5, making vehicles and finer details stand out with extreme precision while zooming through a Dubai cityscape or across sun-soaked San Francisco streets. Some environments do stand out more than others, with fictional circuits like the iconic Yokohama Docks being a visual treat to race around, while a day race around Brands Hatch can look admittingly dull.
The core focus of GRID Legends’ marketing was placed on its cinematic, Driven to Glory campaign; a star-studded live action documentary of the last GRID World Championship season, told in a similar fashion to Netflix’s popular F1 Drive to Survive documentary series. You’ll play as ‘Driver 22’, an unknown in the racing world as you rise to the ranks from rookie to pro to the finale Gauntlet events representing the ever-struggling Senaca racing team.
Driven to Glory is your typical underdog type story that does a decent job of telling a story between races of your teammates and a few of the on-track competitors you’ll forge rivalries with, giving it more personality and depth than just AI cars with names or a voice over the radio. Some cutscenes that blend real life with in-game can be quite jarring and immersion breaking, however the actors do a good job at making it feel like a believable, F1 style documentary – with a live action actor playing Nathan McKane capturing his cocky persona and Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education) delivering a fun-loving charismatic style as Valentin Manzi.
The Driven to Glory campaign is quite short, clocking in at around 5-6 hours to beat, so don’t expect incredible levels of storytelling here. But for a first attempt, Codemasters has crafted a decent campaign for players to enjoy that captures the racing documentary style and serves as an appetizer for players to experience before delving into the large variety GRID Legends has on offer with Career mode.
Career is the heart of the GRID Legends experience, and while players might be disappointed with how short the campaign is, Career offers a substantial amount of content that throws you into a multitude of different car classes and disciplines in a huge lineup of locations. Drift events make their long-awaited return in GRID Legends, in addition to new game mode types such as Electric and Multi-Class that see players racing in Electric Vehicles collecting boost around the track and competing in no holds barred races with cars of any type.
There’s a good amount of variety on offer here with event types for everyone, though with some minor progression gating that restricts you from certain categories without completing an event in a different category first, which some players may find annoying.
New to GRID is the addition of a Race Creator function, which lets you create your own custom races and play them online with other players. You won’t be sharing them online nor will you have much creative freedom editing as you would in DIRT 5’s Playground mode, but you can tweak individual variables to your liking to create your own unique races to play by yourself or set up a lobby with other players.
One great addition to tackling all these career events is GRID Legends’ new Home menu, that advertises events you should play or continue working through, making it feel more ‘pick up and play’ and driven towards the player, which is a great touch. You can even play these Career events with other players in a seamless “Drop in Drop Out” lobby system that lets online players join you while in the middle of the event, and while your enjoyment may vary depending on players you encounter, this new seamless multiplayer system makes a great new addition - alongside the traditional multiplayer you come to expect.
This variety not only extends from event types but vehicle options, with over 120 cars in 9 classes from crazily modified tuners to nippy open-wheel track cars or bulking trucks to JDM drift icons. Each car can also be customized, not just with livery options but performance upgrades as well, rewarding you for using a car by unlocking new stages the more miles you wrack up on them – incentivizing you to use your favourite vehicles more and more. Not only that, but you’ll also unlock certain cars throughout the Career completing certain events, as well as purchasing them and their individual upgrades from the garage.
GRID Legends sees the return of the Team and Mechanic system, though much different to in the original. In Legends you’re given a set teammate and can upgrade their performance as you level up your Driver Level, investing into certain key skills around different areas of a skill tree. The same for your Mechanic, who can reduce cost of repairs and new car purchases as well as increase XP and money gains among other things. While a neat addition, it does feel basic and personally would have loved to see the option of picking other drivers to join your team who have their own individual stats in key areas that offer more money or XP from their race placements, seeing as it never felt like my teammate contributed to a lot of my races.
Because of all this, it makes me question some of the Money and Racecraft XP earns from completing events. In its current state pre-release with the number of expensive cars for purchase, even with the best mechanic money and XP earn perks, money earn does feel low compared to XP. Additionally, outside of increasing your driver level, XP has no real purpose after hitting Level 35 to unlock the top Mechanic and Team perks. It’s worth mentioning I haven’t hit the Pro tier events, though hopefully money and XP earn rates are something Codemasters can tweak a little post-launch!
Many can look to GRID Legends and think it’s just GRID 2019 but with a story mode, and while its visual identity looks much like its predecessor, under the hood lays a lot more improvement than meets the eye. Legends isn’t exactly an innovation for the series, but merely an iteration on the foundation laid with 2019 and building upon its critical flaws, refining the experience into something great and adding new features that as a complete package, GRID and racing fans will no doubt enjoy.
The cynic in me does wish GRID Legends was launching at a completely different time like early April. While Codemasters have crafted a great and finely polished title, its hard to ignore the mammoth of releases already swarming this February season that could leave it in the dust - with behemoth titles such as Dying Light 2, Horizon Forbidden West, and Elden Ring all launching mere days and weeks before. Not only that, Gran Turismo 7 launches a week later, which could deter players from picking up GRID at launch.
Despite this, GRID Legends is packed with variety and refinements that 2019 sorely lacked, with solid gameplay, new features and enjoyable content that’s worth your time as a racing gamer and should keep you playing for a good 40-50 hours. While I’ve yet to get properly stuck into multiplayer during the review period, or experiment around with the new Race Creator, I’m excited to ‘Drop In’ and curious to see what lies ahead, with Codemasters promising an ambitious live service in the weeks and months to come!