GRID, released in 2019, was a reboot of the racing series that Codemasters made famous back in 2008, and it returned to its basic principle – variety of cars and tracks without a story burden, with emphasis on a pure feel for circuit racing battles. The vehicle roster ranged from tuned sports cars through stock car specials to large American muscle cars and fast prototypes, while the player could freely move between disciplines across the championship seasons and build their own career sequence to taste.
The key mechanic was the so-called Nemesis system, in which rivals on the track remembered the player's aggressive maneuvers and tried to pay them back in kind in later races, giving individual battles a more distinctive, dramatic edge and forcing the player to think about whom they were making an enemy of on the track. The game relied on bodywork damage and physics that rewarded both clean and forceful driving, and also offered a so-called Nemesis camera effect, which dramatically zoomed the camera in on a last-moment duel between two cars. On Xbox One the game ran visually clean and without major technical issues, with emphasis on the atmosphere of big international race weekends, the loud roar of engines in closed tunnels and on open highways, and dynamic weather changing track grip during a single race.
Reviews of the time praised the return to genre purity and the entertaining AI of rivals, who genuinely behaved like opponents with their own memory, though they occasionally mentioned the lower track variety compared to older series installments and the missing offline career depth. In GRID's history, this was a reboot that tried to find a balance between arcade accessibility and tactical battles on the track, and even with the passage of years it still offers some of the best wheel-to-wheel battles the genre had in the Xbox One generation.
Why play it: Anyone looking for pure wheel-to-wheel battles against rivals with their own memory and personality will appreciate GRID's return to genre purity, even though there are fewer tracks compared to older installments.
Game 171 of 204 for Xbox One
