GRID 2 by Codemasters

HANDLING AND THE TRUEFEEL PROCESS

Since we've announced GRID 2 it's been great to speak more openly about its development. Many of the recurring questions we've had involve TrueFeel - our new handling model for GRID 2. I thought I'd take a little time out to explain why we think it's so important and how it will help make GRID 2 become one of the most immersive and rewarding racers... ever? Why not? We aim high.

What is TrueFeel?

TrueFeel is the result of our unique approach and process of vehicle handling development that we've developed for GRID 2. Within the Racing Studio we're nuts about cars and we really care about communicating the unique character of each of the amazing vehicles we have in the game to the player. We want you to understand how each car truly drives, moves on the track, carries/shifts its weight, when/how it breaks traction and ultimately how easy or tough it is to recover when things go wrong. These character traits (along with a multitude of other subtleties) represent the true spirit of each individual car. It's this spirit that we want to share with people who play GRID 2.

When we set out designing GRID 2, capturing a car's true personality for players was our goal. In order to achieve this we had to make a number of decisions. One of these was that GRID 2 should not feature any artificial assists. While our racing team have done fantastic work with assists for previous titles, ultimately having a system artificially braking or modulating your throttle input and potentially even turning into corners for you all detracts from the direct connection the player should have with their car. We want the player to feel everything the car is doing in order to fully understand how it reacts and adapt their behaviour accordingly. This way the player will truly understand the unique character of some of the greatest cars in existence. "Reflecting world class engineering" is a phrase we coined in the studio... some of the world's leading automotive engineers ploughed years of their lives into refining the handling models of many of our vehicles, it would be criminal not to accurately reflect these handling models in GRID 2.

You may be reading this thinking "well that's all well and good, but I didn't think GRID classed itself as a simulation title?" You'd be right; we don't class, and it never has been. This is where TrueFeel comes in. This process allows our handling team to develop each vehicle to retain the core handling characteristics and subtlties which define the real world car, and by allowing players to feel that connection, enable a spectrum of performance for a range of players. Novices will be able to get the car around the track, but experts will be able to take advantage of TrueFeel's depth to really push their car to the limit and dominate races.

Real-world drivers

When initially setting the car up from a purely "simulation" perspective we aim to involve drivers with real-world experience of the car. We've been lucky enough to work with some amazing drivers over the years, along with several manufacturers' in-house test drivers. These guys are invaluable when it comes to ensuring that the character of each vehicle is captured and reflected in-game.

Identification of defining characteristics

The handling team (working with real-world drivers where possible) will then identify the defining characteristics of each vehicle. These could be the way the car handles on corner entry, how it shifts its weight through bends, how traction is lost in various conditions and so on. Once identified, these characteristics must be maintained.

Feel

Once everybody is happy with the car from a simulation perspective the level of feel' is explored and iterated. Essentially, the handling team will assess any "blocking characteristics" that the vehicle may have, for example this could be excessive under-steer on corner entry leading to players repeatedly running wide or off-track. Elements of the vehicle setup will then be very carefully tweaked, rolling back the blocking characteristics to an acceptable level while ensuring that everything identified in step 2 is maintained. This is where the talent within our handling team really comes into play, coupled with the depth of our handling/physics systems - the team have in excess of 300 parameters to carefully balance here.

This approach doesn't mean one difficulty level nor dumbing down. It's about connection. When you connect with the car, you get the most out of it. Pushing yourself and the car becomes intuitive, keeping you in the moment. And it reflects reality - drive a monstrously powerful "over-steery" rear-wheel drive hyper-car in the same way you might a lesser powered, front-wheel drive road car and you will get your ass kicked. The diverse selection of cars necessarily demands a learning curve, so our vehicles are divided into a tier structure, becoming available to the player as they progress through the game (but that's for another article...).

Ultimately, we want players to truly experience and understand the defining characteristics of some of the greatest cars in the world - TrueFeel is how we're going to do that. - Toby Evan-Jones, Associate Producer