Grid Legends review: Driven to Glory brings a fascinating league to life

Grid Legends’ premise is so appealing to a racing fan, I find myself wondering why there’s nothing analogous to it in real life. In the world of Codemasters’ latest driving title, there’s a multidisciplinary racing series with events, rivalries, and public interest — its own over-the-top TV channel, even — on par with Formula One and North America’s NASCAR. A racing team’s year-to-year survival in the Grid World Series is even more tenuous than it is in F1. Winning a championship can make a driver’s career, but a bigger accomplishment is simply staying competitive for four or five seasons.

All of it came from me. Grid Legends’ narrative mode, “Driven to Glory.” The story may not be particularly groundbreaking, but its believable, matter-of-fact presentation of supporting details is catnip to a sports video game fan, thanks to a mixed-reality set, some enjoyable acting, and a lot of well chosen props. A game that allows the player to imagine all of these fictional players or teams exist in an alternative continuum is a great example of this genre. Driven to Glory’s 36 chapters are the story of the season preceding Grid Legends’ larger, and more open-ended career mode. I recommend that every player finish this story, if only for its depth and much-needed player motivation, in an action-racing series that otherwise doesn’t have an obvious reason for a sequel, two years after its predecessor.

That isn’t to suggest that Grid Legends’ racing action is boring or thinly presented. It’s thrilling and very accessible, in that I always felt pressured to drive at my car’s limits, but never felt like I was out of control. Every race has at least one high-speed section where I marveled my ingenuity to make it through the crowd unscathed.

Image: Codemasters/Electronic Arts

But with Codemasters’ last arcade racer (Dirt 5This series, which is barely one year old, was created from an original documentary narrative format. Grid Legends’ best parts have already been addressed by earlier, outstanding games. What separates this game is the introduction that Driven to Glory provides, which does a splendid job spotlighting the kind of racing you’ll find in Grid Legends And nowhere else.

This was the case for me.

Stock car racing. Grid LegendsThe two essential gameplay aspects of stock car racing that are crucial to success were nailed in my first oval race: chassis balance, and drafting. That helps. Grid Legends is using a fictional vehicle, and the setup is fixed for aerodynamics and the tire’s contact with the road. God! It was so nice to finally pick up a stock-car race game, and not oversteer at every turn or understeer towards the apron. Grid Legends This takes out the hassle of managing my race line, and focuses on keeping within the pack and choosing when to move past the leader.

Driven to Glory is a three-lap stock car race that takes place at two ovals, the Crescent Valley in Indiana and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The ease of handling the game’s Oval Stock and Retro Stock classes made me more than eager to try longer, 20-lap events in other modes. Easy presentation of stock car racing Grid Legends This makes it easier to understand the complexity of other games in recent years.

Race electric car I didn’t expect this to be as much of a hit as it is. Grid Legends’ electric events place a premium on aggressive cornering and capitalizing on other drivers’ mistakes, since, in terms of engine power, the cars behave the same. The Lotus Evija’s smooth handling and (fictional!) Beltra Icon Mark 3’s fluidity make them stand out. By hitting the two gate locations far from the race line, E-vehicles are able to charge a boost of three percent. AI drivers use the boost, too, so the CPU’s decision-making — and capacity for mistakes — is really on display in the electric events. The most striking difference between racing electric cars and other vehicles is their sound. Codemasters has always paid scrupulous attention to getting engine notes right; well, with electric cars, you can hear individual spectator chatter as you’re crossing the starting line.

Image: Codemasters/Electronic Arts

Driving courses. Returns to the Real-world Brands Hatch, home of British Touring Car Championships and GT Championships Grid LegendsIt is supplemented by the Alpina Stroda (fantasy with six and four layouts respectively). This duo are truly the star of the show. Alpina Strada has beautiful straights, followed by tricky switchbacks. These turns are most dangerous at night or rain. Brands Hatch is notable for its challenging elevation changes during the best overtaking sections. Other courses stand out, too — real life Red Bull Ring and Suzuka, or the impressively steep Mount Panorama, which has legitimate hill-climb appeal. Grid Legends’ street circuits are fun, but its bespoke race course roster is well designed and well chosen to highlight the most enjoyable parts of driving high performance touring cars.

All of this being said though Grid Legends’ racing difficulty feels carefully balanced for Driven to Glory, where events are at their shortest distance, it’s a little underweight in Career. You can increase the race distance by multiplying three-lap races into 6, 9, 12, 12 or 15 laps. Legend difficulty is the most advanced AI setting. I was able to increase the speed by one notch in a Porsche 911 RSR or Koenigsegg Jeepsko and still be ahead of the field after nine laps. This allowed me to easily make a significant gap to the second-place finisher by the twelveth lap.

While electric cars were faster and more competitive than other vehicles, my goal of securing fifth- or third-place in the race was still achieved by the lap-after-lap cumulative use speed gates. Pack racing in stock cars can end with some close finishes and last-instant reversals — but that’s more likely because I got bumped out of my drafting position, not because I was unable to get to where I needed to be in the field.

This is partly because, for all the AI’s pace and control, it seems that each road course (as opposed to an oval) has at least one wide corner where the AI hews rigidly to the racing line, allowing me to run outside and overtake three, four, sometimes five cars in huge gulps. It is much too simple to pass around the outside. This in reality always draws a surprise note from commentators. Grid Legends.

Image: Codemasters/Electronic Arts

Sometimes, the AI makes inexplicable errors and has technical problems that usually get one or two cars out of harm’s way. The good news is that these appear to be dice-roll occurrences as opposed to pre-race scripted events; I’ve used flashback to undo a collision with a spun-out AI car and seen it undo the AI’s error altogether. However, AI wipeouts still happen all the time. I almost wish that they were more common. Also, the Grid series’ “Nemesis” feature, which is supposed to turn a rival driver into a dangerous threat, is rather simplistically triggered (a big collision, and little else) and the AI’s aggression is downright ineffectual at lower difficulty settings.

Finally, Grid Legends has limited setup options (affecting gear length, suspension stiffness, and brake bias), there’s not much need to change them, since every race is run on solid pavement, and most circuits are the same overall length. For example, no track prioritized acceleration over top speed. Only a handful of street layouts required slight surface modifications that would have to soften my suspension. While there’s something to be said for the pick-up-and-playability of Grid Legends, the setups’ lack of necessity can make an otherwise diverse vehicle fleet feel indistinct over a stretch of three or four events.

Still, my complaints aren’t much more than minor dents and scratches on another beautiful ride from video gaming’s foremost racing studio. Grid Legends’ developers put a ton of effort into Driven to Glory, and then wisely made that a preamble to a much larger, much longer playing experience elsewhere, rather than focusing players’ attention entirely on a single-use story mode. It’s a strong, tarmac-based counterpart to the Dirt series, and satisfies a wider range of competitive urges than the dedicated F1 simulation that launches every year. The racing is always exciting, both as spectator and competitor. Grid Legends delivers should have every racing fan wondering why something like this can’t be found in real life, too.

Grid Legends launched Feb. 25 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox OneAnd Xbox Series X. Electronic Arts provided a code for the download of this game to be reviewed on Xbox Series X. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions on products sold via affiliate links. Find out more. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.