The Downfall of GRID - Mini Retrospective

Never played the original, played like 5 minutes of 2 and never touched again.
Loved grid auto sport its a shame you cant buy it anymore.
Abd boy oh boy saw 1 minute of CRINGE Legends and knew was not for me at all lol

the thing i dont like about this franchise is they removed all older games from steam. with nfs titles you can still buy them from origin without license issues.

I like grid legends

TOCA Race Driver 3 (and Colin 04) are still my favorite Codemasters games and in my opinion these are overall their best games.

GRID 1 & 2 is still the top G of the series Autosport and the rest are meh. I grown up with GRID 1 & 2. Autosport and the rest aren't that great.

Race Driver GRID is perfect .. Grid 2 close but its quite enjoyable , when Autosports try to back to they roots and make it well after all ... grid 2019 became sooo boring and Legends fail in the launch date ....
Maybe EA shoutdown GRID but I have hope than GRiD make a return

Race Driver GRID is perfect .. Grid 2 close but its quite enjoyable , when Autosports try to back to they roots and make it well after all ... grid 2019 became sooo boring and Legends fail in the launch date ....
Maybe EA shoutdown GRID but I have hope than GRiD make a return

Coming from playing racedriver grid on the latest Grid Legends felt like the biggest disappointment for me. All the things that were included in the original rd grid and are now missing stopped me even finishing grid legends

Rumors of the series being shelfed? Hardly, I would bet we are gonna see a new grid by 2025, Grid Legends was actually one of the better selling games of the series and still had quite the large player base compared to other codemasters titles, there's absolutely no concrete proof the grid series is ending

The Grid series is like a rollercoaster for me. Part 1 was the highlight, part 2 was a steep downhill ride, Autosport was much better again, then in 2019 things went downhill again and I really enjoyed legends again. Even though it's nowhere near as good as the first game.

Imo, the direction this series took after the first installment just made no sense. All they had to do, was follow and stay faithful to the recipe of the first Grid, expand the team management system, keep that beloved physic and damage model, and add more contents.

But nope, they just lost track of what fans loved about the series and broke everything.

Grid 2 has the shittiest handling. Every car fishtails when turning even just a little.
Grid Legends has the shittiest plot. Nobody asked for a shitty Netflix cringe drama.

Pt 5....
SMS launch Fast and Furious Crossroads 6 Aug 2020 becomes the worst reviewed game SMS Codmashers released 47% positive (single digit at launch) max of 54 concurrent players and a mere 10K sales only 1 player in the last 3 months and max of 2 between April and August...
They actually SOLD this POS??????

Codies/SMS launched Project Cars 3 end of August 2020.
Surpassing GREED as the worst player reviewed game in BOTH Codies and SMS history (F&FC aside) ~280K sales max of 53% positive (low teens at launch).
Ian Bell when asked before launch "Why is the player in all the pre-release videos drifting through every turn, is this ACTUALLY a Simracer or an arcade game????"
Bell: Project Cars 3 will be all the sim you'll want!"
RUHEALLLYYYYY? No fuel usage, no tyre wear, no pitting allowed, garbage graphics, colour pallette, worse pop in than Greed FFS!

Codies put themselves up for sale with Take-Two offering $938 million in November 2020.
EA swooped in and paid $1/2 BILLION dollars in Jan and sealed the deal by February 2021.
Makes a change for EA to get robbed for once!

December 2020 a mere 4 months after PC3 launched Ian Bell says this "Project Cars 4 will be the most realistic simulation ever made!!"
Codemashers CEO and CFO deaprts their jobs July 2021.
Bell "leaves" Codemashers by October 2021...

Codies launch GREED Leg ends Feb 2022.... AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa!
peak players on Steam? 455 sales of only ~28K
negative player reviews only beaten by SMS codies Fast & Furious Crossroadseviews are only

Bell March 16 2022 "I have a non compete period I must allow to expire following which soime epic things are on the way."
Bell March 29 2022: Something unique and massive coming "Come at me Will I need some coverage. x" later deleted..
Bell same date: "If PCars4 is awesome it was all me. If it isn't. I left 6 months ago. xx"
November 2022 Bell aiming to hire PCars employees for GTR Revival project.
EA abandons PCars Nov 2022 disbands SMS

EA looking for buyers since May 2022, Disney, Amazon, Apple and Comcast-NBCUniversal, all replies are along the lines of:
"GET TAE F**K!"

This is what happens when game devs ignore fans repeatedly.....!

Pt 4....
GREED ahem GRID 2019. The ****SHOW! The lies exposed and the "death" of a games giant! ~320k sales and the worst player reviews in Codemashers history! (At launch)
The ****SHOW!
MONTHS before launch when vids were shown of this game the HUGE flaws, in graphics were shown!
Series fans all complained about the blurry graphics, horrendous LOD pop-in, mysteriously disappearing shadows just in front of your cars, yet strangely late appearance of all shadows on trackside objects, trees that looked like badly assembled plastic replicas where leaves point on every direction (in nature they generally point towards the Sun to maximise photosynthesis), trackside banners being black shapes then POW vibrantly coloured when you got close, HUGELY distracting cubemap errors making trees actually change shape with entire branches disappearing or causing diagonal grids appearing in them.
We were assured these would be sorted....
After launch nothing was fixed.
On top of all the above the Force Feedback was nigh on non-existant only comprising of wheel weight and impacts, Kerbs might make your tyres sound like DRRRRRRRRRRR but the FFB just gave dunt-dunt as you hit then drove off them, though you'd more often spin out if you touched them!
The HUD on ultrawide monitors (32:9 and 21:9) were locked far left of the screen and fixed to a 16:9 layout, we mentioned this with screenshots, they promised to fix this and the PLETHORA of other bugs (including many I've chosen to forget!).
They "Fixed" the HUD by locking it to far left AND far right meaning the Map, Speedo, position info and lap data were out of your line of sight... Sigh.....

The Lies exposed:
Cheats and trainers started being used, Myself and a friend caught one cheater online.
As codies had CLAIMED a zero tolerance to cheaters and STILL stated bans would be handed out to offenders he recorded vids of several races where I'd lose one particular individual through every turn just to have them boost up behind me in a heartbeat.
He duly handed over the recordings to BOTH Codemashers and Steam (not just posting to YT but the raw footage) and demanded they act on thier "policy"....
Codies and Steam contacted the individual who admitted to using trainers and BEGGED not to be banned and PROMISED to stop using them..
My friend, disgusted to STILL see them playing depite being fully aware of their admission to both eventually DEMANDED answers as to WHY they hadn't been banned????
Codemashers were silent.. Steam on the other hand?
They advised him that because Codemashers didn't use dedicated servers and had adopted peer to peer multiplayer (Host a session and your PC WAS the server), Codemasters couldn't provide ANY evidence that Steam REQUIRES in order to enact a VAC ban, video wasn't enough despite the admission of guilt.
Player numbers TANKED by 90% in less than a month, so bad (iirc) the sales were less than 100K on Steamspy and initial player reviews were in the mid 30% range.
so bad that a MONTH after launch it was 30% off, pre order players went APE****! prices went back up for 3 days, then dropped to 56% off for 2 weeks, back to 56% off over the Xmas holidays back to full price for 19 days, back to 56% off for 5 days full price for 10 days then permanently dropped by 30% thereafter, in total GREED was full price a mere 65 days in total.
These permanent sales couldn't save it, nor could the free weekend and 7 various bundle deals over the following year where players got the game for effectively £2 a copy!
Many gamers warned Codemashers if they didn't act to fix the glaring bugs they'd lose customers, I went as far to say "If you keep ignoiring us Codemashers doesn't DESERVE to survive!" I got banned from their forums and steam discussions for making "Threats"....
They closed the pre launch graphics thread right before launch stating "There's nothing more to be learned here..."
It was the LONGEST thread about the game and 99% was negative comments.
So the OP started a new one which ended up even longer with even MORE negativity!
Imagine our surprise when Codies announcements came along like:
"No plans to fix the HUD on Ultrawide. But We'll consider it for future titles though.",
"We can't fix [this or that] graphics bug as it's baked in" and
"No plans to adjust the LOD pop issues in but we'll look into that in the next game"

Fans walked away and never came back

Pt 2....
Grid 2 2013. WTH!?!?!?!? AT LAST!!!!!
After a 5 year hiatus we got news of this game incoming, it all LOOKED good and ended up very popular ~5 million sales, scoring 83% avg.
For fans of the original game this was tragically bad, instead of a game requiring real world racecraft and a grip style for racing, this was a drift to win racer yet, paradoxically, the drifting was like tea-trays on ice with only point to point drift tracks with staggered launches, so, no chance of tandem drifting and the scoring system utterly destroyed.
Result? The original "Gridders" abandoned it and again the forums ended up a battleground of love/hate for the game.
The Grid "identity crisis" was born...

I feel like it’s the damage models. Really, think about it. What Autosport had going for it., was that it, at times, had Burnout levels of Crashes wilst still pursuing that simulation feel, with on track racing, Penalty systems and mecanical damage system after a a collision. This created a game that us simulation game fans could enjoy, but still have it feel like a holleywood interpretation. Them moving away from the damage systems they had I think killed the franchise. Kids who love arcade games all of a sudden didn’t have great crashes anymore. And the people that loved racing sims didn’t get their popcorn-time game anymore. I know it has to do with licensensing. But to hell with it. When I play a racing sim. It has to be an actual sim. When I crash into wall at the speed of 200 kmph, I want my car to turn into a pancake and my tires flying in the distance. Some of these so called sims like GT and forza, you actually just continue driving with some scratches. That is something, for a sim I just cannot accept. I know you’re not supposed to crash your car left and right. But not having the fear of collision actually eliminates risk a real life race would have. For sure you’ll lose some seconds braking late and bumper kissing the car in front of you. It might cost you a position or 2. But realism for me is actually have the risk of not finishing at all because of that one error. And that is something I felt Grid autosport nailed. Albeit not optimal. It was for sure heading in the right direction with that one. Then they decided to eliminate that 1 thing that made Grid stand out from the rest of the pack. And in doing so eliminating the reason to buy this game over any other Sim-like game out there with better licenses.

I have raced them since the first one, my favourite online racer just to have fun. Theres plenty of people playing Legends online, a select few still drive around in autosport, and grid2 and 2019 are basically dead. But now that EA bought Codemasters the future of the series is definitely in doubt.

GRID Autosport is a hidden gem of all racing games IMO, its just the right amount of everything, and the car model physics is so enjoyble with no nannies, its just a never getting old blast to boot this game and have some goes.

I just don't think gamers care about this series anymore. All they want is Forza and Gran Turismo now.

If only night city track from GRID2 not scrapped and able to race car on any track it will be better

I have no interest in the grid series, on my pc. Grid Autosport is just right on my iPad Pro with a DS4 however, when I just fancy a blast. And it looks great, bigger than a switch screen by miles.

Grid 2019 is definitely not the worst in the series because Grid 2 should be immediately disqualified for getting rid of the cockpit view. The original Grid had a more engaging cockpit view with a better sense of speed than either Forza or Gran Turismo that generation, arguably with only Need For Speed Shift besting it and Project Gotham providing a lighter less visceral alternative. It was one of the best selling points Grid had, alongside the great menu theme “Vintage Warmer” (which is one of the best racing game menu themes I have heard since the 90s). One of the other core parts of the branding was acting as an alternative to the more image focused games in the underground racing sub-genre, letting you focus on just racing as opposed to worrying about clout or image or…

In other words, Grid 2 got rid of almost everything I liked most about Grid. It should never have been called Grid 2 and it diluted the brand by trying to redefine, something that releasing Grid Autosport on that generation of consoles right as many gamers moved on to the next really couldn’t fix.

When it comes to Grid, I would rank every other console game in the series (even Grid Autosport on Switch) ahead of Grid 2. It may be fine as a game considered outside the context of the series - I don’t blame people for liking that and that’s fine. It simply does not share enough characteristics with the other games in the series to deserve the name it was given.

If it had been called “Grid: Gaiden” or some other designation to indicate it was starting its own sub-series (like Dirt vs Dirt Rally) then I would be happy to consider it on its own merits. But as a numbered sequel to the original game? No other console game in the series is less deserving of that than Grid 2.

There was just 1 Grid : The First.

Damage model and spectacular crashes were 50% of GRID success. GRID Legends is amazing game but with reduced damage model it just can't compete. I'd better delete all those fancy manufacturers that were too scared to show their vehicles destroyed. I can live without Ferrari and Lambo, but I can't live without good crashes. Poor replays don't make it better too.

Really nice video well put together. I'm a big fan of Grid 1. Music, Lobby, menus in 3D with audio FX, Camera movement, car damage, trailer. Balance between Energy and chillness, easy of playing. This game is a freaking masterpiece. I'm so mad when it come to modern games, they rely on HD graphics to sell the games, but the games have no soul, nothing behind the facade.

So I'm an arcade racer coming off of years of playing gran Turismo with the wheel. I just got fed up. I drive for work. I drive to work. I drive in traffic. I drive to teach customers about their vehicles. I'm fed up. I want arcade. I want to flip to boost to go the moon and back. Motorstorm apocalypse, and a couple retro PS2 racers are the only racers I enjoy now. I wanted to like hot wheels unleashed so bad because it's exactly what in looking for but that game sucked so bad i sold it after like 40 hours of forcing myself to enjoy it. Tonight I'm playing rumble racing for PS2 and maybe downhill domination if I don't get too tipsy this Friday Evening.

for the race experience i like grid legend the dynamic music make the race feel dramatic , for the immersion i like grid 2/autosport because the first person animation is good you can see the driver hand crossing when crashing and the camera shake is intense at first person camera

Autosport, for me, is the best racing game period. It has a driving feel I've not found in any other. Such a shame it got overlooked. Racing minis around brands hatch will be with me until I die

I actually enjoyed grid legends a lot more than other recent grid games.Yeah it's not like race driver grid but i think it's pretty close.Unfortunately Grid legends won't save the franchise.

What I miss most from the first game that never made it into the sequels was the action style shaky camera when watching replays. That was so effective, like watching James Bond or Bourne Identity car chases. I would've appreciated it if they had included it even as an option during replays.

I remember they had a GRID arcade machine at my 8th grade dance i played the HELL outta it😂😂😂

I’m convinced that the new Forza Motorsport is just going to be another reboot of a game that didn’t need a full reboot. Kind of like with NFS Shift and Dirt Rally, it seems like they want to get more extreme and serious while lacking the “quirks and features” that made Forza so cool and different in the 360 generation.

Seems like the original RACE DRIVER GRID, even in 2023 still managed to recapture all of the epicness especially the very advanced damage modelling that all the sequels from GRID series failed to follow.

Grid 2 "Brake to drift" - You drift reglardles. I got it from reseller on steam and tried it out on G29. This is probably the most Confused game I ever played. It has Semi-SIm feel yet you can't even change major car settings, you can't change basicly nothing about handling, tires. gears, no upgrades. You get a car and here you go. Drive it! Many cars would be great if I could change the gear-ratio from long to short. This makes the game very frustrating because it is a semi-sim and even if you like the car you wont use on some tracks because you know the gear ratio on it is bad for that track.

The first GRiD game had the best story mode in the entire racing game genre.

... what, it's just "raise money to fund your own team, then beat all competitions with it"? Yes, but anything more complex than that will utterly fail because you can't interrupt the gameplay for a cutscene without it ending up annoying.

only problem about the autosport is there is no pit lane and the ai are just dumb as fck as they try to divebomb you throught the corner. even worst, as I said that theres no pit lane in this game. it is impossible to beat endurance mode because the tyre wears faster and theres no option but just to slow down and pray that the ai wont catch you.

This is awful. I missed out getting all DLCs for GRID Autosport after it's been quietly delisted from PS3 PS Store. And I'm about to ran out of ideas for the next few years for Grid Autosport content videos.

From my experience, first Grid was good, Grid2 was so good on multiplayer but sadly had no tuning for singleplayer besides liveries. Motorsport was great until you realized all those different events come down to the same thing - be first. What's the point of 8minute endurance race with tire wear if you cant do pit-stops? Why is it measured in meters? It's so weird. Grid Legends had very fun story and it was a blast to play through but it felt that after the story you had nothing else to do.

They shouldn't have drop "Race Driver" from the name. Game lost its mojo right after this.

They could no longer capture the grid 1 scene because the main heads behind the development of the game left codemasters, after their departure they created the studio playground games, which has been under the development of forza horizon ever since. Also those people were under the development of the toca race driver series, colin mcrae dirt 1 and colin mcrae dirt 2, and also maybe that's the reason why the environment and scene of forza horizon 1 is very similar to the environment of dirt 2

I hate to say it but Race Driver Grid has the best damage model featured on licensed vehicles and it will stay like that for the eternity

I'm not even kidding, car companies are so fucked up that I'm pretty sure nothing will change with restrictions, it will get even worse

Nice video. 😁

I enjoyed Grid Legends much more than Forza 7. Tried Forza out yesterday and am just disappointed in how restrictive and bad structured the campaign is. Grid had lots of races to do after the story. Better than GT7 in some aspects also. I really hate Kazunori Yamauchis Vision for the future and the franchise so i am biased about that anyways.

I recently picked up GRID Legends since it was free with PS+. One thing I definetely enjoyed was the story, which, Although may not be what others would have hoped for (especially people who followed tbe series since TOCA Race Driver), still managed to catch my attention. That, and the soundtrack made me feel like I was actually putting up a fight against fate itself with each mission. Although I barely got through on Expert Difficulty, I'd definetely try and go another round on Legend

How is it bad that they respect their success and not really try? Clearly assetto corsa 2 will suck too. I say good for them. "Sorly missing it" is the bloody point. Perfection should be left alone for Christ sake

Why do devs do such stupid mistakes?

It still confuses me, that grid Legends has recieved post launch support in form from updates and dlc, even though it undersold. And this is EA we are talking about.
But i have a theory. Codemasters is working on their own Need for speed entry. Players have been complaining for years over NFS handling. Codemasters could nail a good handling model

Demolition derby on GRID was special. So many great times and memories