I have enjoyed the past two racing games from Codemasters, I found DiRT and GRID two highly enjoyable racing games. However on word earlier this year about the team acquiring the F1 license I became quite nervous about what direction Codies would take the new game. I feared that a continuation of the arcade stylings of their previous two games would have a negative impact on the F1 game, however word has reached me (via Kotaku) that Codies are intent on creating a game totally different to DiRT and GRID.

In a post on the F1 Game forums the GRID Executive Producer had this to say:

GRID and DiRT are aimed at an arcade audience and they do that very well. F1 has different requirements and will get a completely different treatment from our in-house team, including full on sim options, physics, rules and regs etc. We will also have arcade requirements catered for as well. How this will be split we do not know yet, but split it will be

Which is certainly good news for all of us die-hard F1 fans who are looking forward to some good ole F1 action!

Codemasters are great at making racing games, we have seen series’ such as Colin McRae and TOCA emanate from them and soon we will see GRID appear. To add to their impressive resume of racing games and work they have acquired UK-based Sega Racing Studio, the team that was behind Sega Rally Revo and which was closed earlier in the month by Sega.

Rod Cousens, chief executive of Codemasters had this to say about the takeover to Next-Gen.biz

“In seizing this opportunity, we have created additional resources to escalate our plans in the racing segment,

“We hope to welcome more than 40 people to the company and we have enjoyed the full co-operation of our friends at Sega in making this happen. It is good business for Codemasters, an exciting prospect and there will be more to come as we are not content to stand still.”

Can we expect to see another racing game get put into development while GRID is finished off, or will this new team work on GRID? I myself wouldn’t be surprised if they started work on a new rally game in the same vein as Colin McRae DIRT.

One thing we can say though is that Codies sure do love to race!

I’ll let everyone into a little secret of mine, I love racing games. I really really do. I grew up playing games such as Screamer, Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix 2 and Network Q RAC Rally Championship all from back in the mid 1990s.

These were all classics of the racing genre (in my mind at any rate) and from there my racing experience travelled through the Colin McRae games (RIP Colin) and the Gran Turismo games. My love of the racing game returned last year with Colin McRae DiRT, a superb game from Codemasters.

Now it seems that Race Driver GRID is going to continue grabbing my attention and enticing me to fall in love with it. Just watch the following Developer Video Diary (thanks to GameTrailers)

If that doesn’t get you wanting this game, then I don’t know what will. I want this thing, and by god I want it now!