Video Game / GRID Legends

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GRID Legends is a 2022 Racing Game developed by Codemasters and published by Electronic Arts. It is the fifth installment in the GRID franchise. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on February 25, 2022, while a port of the game for the iOS and Android was released on December 2024. The game is notable for, for the first time in the series, including a story-focused career mode inspired by the Netflix documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, entitled Driven to Glory, even utilizing the same virtual set technology used in The Mandalorian to insert the actors into virtual backgrounds.^note Codemasters, who are in charge of the F1 racing game series, had previously opted to include a plot-focused career mode in F1 2021 titled Braking Point. In GRID Legends however, the mode is much more narrative-focused.

The player assumes the role of the protagonist, the driver for the Seneca Racing team known only as "Driver 22". Despite 22's teammate, and Seneca's number one driver, Yume Tanaka (Natsumi Kuroda) being considered one of the best pilots in the sport, Seneca's relatively small status means that 22's and Seneca's story is the classic Cinderella tale, as they ascend the ranks of the GRID World Series, first facing off against Valentin Manzi (Ncuti Gatwa), the number one driver for fellow upstart team Voltz Racing, and later on, Nathan McKane (Callum McGowan), making his first physical appearance after being a staple character throughout the GRID series, reprising his role as number one driver for the dominant Ravenwest Motorsport. However, a massive crash at a race at Strada Alpina caused by McKane results in Tanaka being seriously injured, leaving her future in the sport in limbo and weakening Seneca's resolve. It's up to Driver 22 to soldier on the rest of the championship on their own, as Seneca investigates the secret behind Ravenwest's success.

Other major characters include Ryan McKane (Joseph Millson), Ravenwest Motorsport's team owner and Nathan's uncle (who previously appeared in TOCA Race Driver); Ravenwest's number two driver Lara Carvalho (Nicole Castillo-Mavromatis), Seneca Racing's team principal Marcus Ado (Miles Yekinni), their lead engineer and crew chief Ajeet Singh (Devesh Kishore), and GRID TV's sideline reporter and color commentator Claire Webb (Sara Vickers).

This game features examples of:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: Carried over GRID 2019 has the Prestige level system. As soon as you reach past level 99, you receive your Prestige status and your driver level is reset back to level 1. There are 4 prestige levels so technically there are 400 levels you can reach.
• The Alleged Car:
  • What happens if you try using a car with no upgrades in a race for fully upgraded cars.
  • The AI cars frequently wreck due to mechanical failures, often right in front of you. Almost once a race, a random competitor will bow out with a blown engine or loose wheel, sometimes on the first lap.
  • Amongst the new cars from Classic Car-Nage which basically come fresh out of DiRT Showdown, there are some unusual choices, such as the Beltra Frostbite (an ice-cream truck) and the Dumont Ute Titan (a tow truck).
  • The second major update adds, for some bizarre reason, the Mazda Autozam AZ-1 Mazdaspeed kei car. If you thought the Mini Miglia Challenge was gutless, wait until you see how pokey the AZ-1 is. In return, it's quite agile in even the sharpest turns.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Like the rest of the GRID series, the game features Flashbacks, which allow you to seamlessly rewind time by pressing a button and regain control by pressing it again. Also similar to 2019, there is no penalty for using as many flashbacks as possible per race, whereas in previous games lesser or no flashbacks used gives you cash and XP bonus. Shame that unlike in GRID 2019, the number of flashbacks have been reduced to three per race, as oppose to giving the option of having infinite flashbacks. Some vehicle upgrades allow you to carry extra flashbacks.
• Artistic License – Cars: Most of the game's vehicles are far more durable than they are in real life and can survive extraordinary amounts of abuse. One such example are the Renault Formula One cars, which are designed to splinter in collisions to disperse the forces of the impact in real life, but can beat and bash for several laps and still come out the other side (mostly) driveable in game.
• Artistic License – History: Driven to Glory and its DLC storylines are set between 2020 to 2022, with the GRID World Series taking place in relative normality, ignoring the events of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Artistic License – Sports: Despite being a completely fictional sport, the GRID World Series is a unique-looking series of motorsports events, which has an amount of artistic licenses that go way past real-life standards:
  • The Strada Alpina incident is the most notorious of these. Putting aside that a massive pileup like this would severely injure (or worse, kill) the drivers involved in it, there are no safety measures around the mountainous and highway areas of the track, meaning if a car crashes onto the side of the track, it'd also likely kill or severely injure nearby spectators as well. It's likely the GRID World Series would be held accountable if there were any fatalities due to lack of safety equipment.
  • Another thing is that the GRID World Series doesn't use any racing flags. One example being during the aforementioned Strada Alpina incident, with Nathan McKane triggering a massive pileup that takes nearly half of the grid out of the running, but the race is still going on normally. In Real Life, a catastrophic wreck like that would likely cause the race to be red-flagged, or worse, cancelled. This has long been a standard rule in most motorsport events. ^ExampleRaces such as the pileups of the 2021 Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix or the qualifying session of the 2017 Macau Grand Prix would result in suspending the session. Another example would be the 2019 Spa-Francorchamps Formula 2 round, where Juan Manuel Correa at Eau Rogue involuntarily collided an incapacitated Anthoine Hubert at a very high speed during the feature race, ultimately resulted in aborting the session. Hubert later succumbed to his death moments after the cancellation.
  • Speaking of Nathan McKane, as the perpetrator of the incident, he would be penalized or disqualified from the race for triggering a massive pile up in real life. Nathan would likely also be suspended for the next race, or even disqualified from the championship. Or worse... permanently banned from the series. ^ExampleThis happened to Michael Schumacher from the 1997 Formula One Championship after he deliberately rammed Jacques Villeneuve whilst trying to defend his race lead in the final round of the championship at the European Grand Prix at Jerez. The FIA ultimately decided to strip Schumacher of 2nd place in the championship as the result of the incident.
  • The teams of the GRID World Series drive numerous different cars from different categories whilst being in one major sporting event. In real life, it would be very unlikely that all teams would be able to have the necessary resources and funds needed to buy such massive amount of cars for a certain amount of events, such as prototypes and hypercars that cost millions to own and another million for repairs and maintenance, and some are very hard to find due to its limited production. The closest to this in real life would be FIA Motorsport Games, but is more of Pseudolympics format being held in shorter time spans.
  • The Grid World Series also holds races during thunderstorms, thick fog and even sandstorms. Most real world racing series will stop racing when there is lightning in the area out of the safety of the fans and crew, as well as situations that greatly inhibit visibility, like the aforementioned fog and sandstorms, which limit the player's vision to a few hundred meters in front of them.
• Ascended Extra: Yume Tanaka was a normal AI opponent in GRID 2019 before she became one of the main characters in GRID Legend's story mode. Though in the Classic Car-Nage storyline, Yume, alongide her new teammate Lara are Demoted to Extra, due to Valentin being the main focus of the story. In the Enduring Spirit storyline, Yume is back to being an Ascended Extra once more due to the story focused on Seneca Racing again.
• Battle in the Rain: The final race in the game at Strada Alpina takes place during a heavy rainstorm. At night.
• Berserk Button: Like in the 2019 game, this game features the Nemesis status, which gets activated if you hit your opponents multiple times, and will trigger them to drive aggressively and try to force you off the track. Unlike the 2019 game though, the Nemesis status will sometimes get carried over to the next race, in which case drivers who are previously marked as Nemesis can be re-triggered by just a light touch. In some races, Nathan McKane is automatically marked as a Nemesis at the start of the race. Though the Nemesis status lasts only 5 minutes from the moment you triggered them.
• Bookends:
  • Both ends of the Driven to Glory storyline take place in a Prototype race around Strada Alpina.
  • Also both ends of the Enduring Spirit storyline take place in an Endurance race around Fuji Speedway.
  • Finally, both ends of the Winter Bash storyline take place in a Drift race around the Okutama Sprint.
• Bottle Episode: All of the cutscenes of Rise of Ravenwest from start to finish take place inside a film studio, as in-universe, the McKanes are taking part in an interview with Claire Webb about their rise in the racing world. In fact, some of the races are framed as being "flashbacks" from the McKanes as they remember their exploits.
• Brand X: In addition to real world sponsors, GRID Legends features fictional brands like Equita Oil, Slingshot Fuel, Oxy, Distort and Concordia, which have their logos painted onto cars, printed on trackside banners and sewn into firesuits, as well as acting as feature sponsors for events.
• Britain Is Only London: Downplayed. While GRID Legends features London as one of its British tracks in the lineup, it also features Brands Hatch, a track located in Kent, which borders within the Greater London area.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Fully Upgraded events plays a downplayed version of this. While these events require you at least 1 car in a specific category to reach at least stage 2 upgrades, what only contributes it is to unlock the next tier. This however is played straight in the Pro tier as these fully upgraded events from each category are required to unlock the Gauntlet tier.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • After numerous complaints from the community, Drift mode finally returns in Legends after it was previously removed in 2019.
  • For the first time since the first GRID, the Yokohama docks make a surprising return to this game.^note The Yokohama track was also featured in DiRT Showdown, but there you can roam freely around the area. As the aforementioned drift mode above, it's a shame there is no freestyle drift in the game.
  • In the similar vein, though it's not in the base game, the first major update marks the return of Demolition Derby for the fourth time, after it was also previously removed in 2019.
  • The second major update marks the return of endurance racing since its last inception in Autosport. This time, you don't have to worry about tire wear and it's now a multi-class event, similar to the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in the first GRID game.
  • The third major update adds the Miami track, which was last seen in GRID 2.
• Call-Back:
  • Chapter 5 of the Rise of Ravenwest storyline recreates of the very first race in Race Driver: GRID, complete with a sepia effect! Except you're put into an SRT Viper GTS-R rather than a modified Dodge Viper SRT-10.^note Actually a Hennessey Viper Venom 1000.
  • Some of the fictional sponsors are actually ones from Codemasters's F1 games.
• Car Fu: The first major update played this straight. Introducing "Classic Car-Nage", a new race mode that highly prioritizes in a form of a Demolition Derby, DiRT Showdown-style.
• Car Skiing: The Dumont T36 Brawler Sport is prone to turning like the car is about to roll onto its roof. Be careful when you drive cars with low profile, such as the Renault R26 and the Aston Martin Vulcan AMR Pro. Otherwise, you'll end up being prone to this if you drive on the kerbs.
• Career-Ending Injury: After the massive crash at Strada Alpina, Yume Tanaka loses a leg, forcing her to be Put on a Bus while Driver 22 has to handle the remaining races while she's gone. Subverted, though, as a modified car allows her to return to the track.
• Close-Contact Danger Benefit: Just like in the first GRID game, as with the return of drift events, the closer you drift near the flag/cones without touching it, the more bonus points you get. In regular races, you also score Style Points for driving very close to the barrier.
• Continuity Nod: Ryan McKane, the main protagonist of the first TOCA Race Driver, returns in this game as the uncle of Nathan McKane, the main antagonist.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Some cutscenes show Driver 22 (the player character) crashing and having to abandon a race, no matter how well the player actually drives during gameplay. One example is a cutscene showing a pickup race in Barcelona where Driver 22 is rammed into a wall by Nathan McKane, and fail to finish.
• A Day in the Limelight: The story expansions added in major updates gives some characters from Driven to Glory a time to shine by giving them their own respective storylines, in some cases even being Promoted to Playable.
  • Classic Car-Nage, while still featuring Driver 22 as the player character, is ostensibly more about Valentin Manzi (now Driver 22's teammate on a new team) and how he gets his wish of the GRID World Series adding the titular competition, essentially a Demolition Derby, as a new discipline on the series.
  • Enduring Spirit is about Lara Carvalho as Seneca's newest driver (and the DLC's player character) while she and Yume Tanaka compete in the "Grid of Legends", a tournament centered around endurance races. It also leans more into Yume's backstory with the game adding Fuji Speedway, which in-universe is explained as Yume's suggestion in reference to her exploits as a racer before the GRID World Series.
  • Rise of Ravenwest is about how Ryan and Nathan McKane came together and went on to form Ravenwest and the Start of Darkness that lead to them becoming villains. Nathan here is the player character in all but the first three chapters, where the role goes to Ryan.
  • Winter Bash marks the return of Driver 22 and Valentin Manzi as the main characters, with the former retaining their role as the player character.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • While the GRID series' staple was to be a straightforward racing series with little to no story, this installment however, with actual plot for the first time, takes it to a much darker tone. Seneca faces deeper challenges in comparison to previous player's teams, to the point of putting the team's survival on the line, and while promotional material showed Ravenwest taking on a much more antagonistic trait towards the player than in any other previous game, no one expected such explicitness such as the Strada Alpina incident that would likely kill a driver and putting numerous spectators in danger, which resulted in Yume Tanaka having her leg amputated from the disastrous result.
  • On the other hand, the Classic Car-Nage story update shifted to both a Lighter and Softer and a Denser and Wackier tone, where the characters, mostly Valentin Manzi is seen having a fun, upbeat time.
  • Enduring Spirit also has the similar Lighter and Softer tone as Classic Car-Nage, where the characters, mainly the two Seneca heroines Yume and Lara, take on a Grid of Legends tournament. It's simply a Driven to Glory mini-storyline, just without Nathan McKane involved.
• Demoted to Extra: While Rick Scott has been a long-time Ravenwest driver in past GRID games, here in Legends, he is just now a regular AI opponent from a lesser-known team. (Team HighGrade Racing to be exact.) That said, you should still expect him to be running up front. Subverted in Rise of Ravenwest where Rick Scott appears as Nathan McKane's teammate for Ravenwest at that time in one of the flashback events.
• Did I Mention It's Christmas?:
  • Despite the final races taking place in late December (exactly at New Year's Eve), there's nothing related with Christmas being shown, though it's justifiable as the focus is in the main race. It was later averted in the third major update which adds Christmas decors and illuminations around the streets of Chicago, in time for the upcoming holiday.
  • The Winter Bash storyline is set entirely in December 2022, yet there's still no mention of anything Christmas-related, despite it correctly showing lots of snow in certain locations. As mentioned above, it's also justified in that the focus is on the race events themselves.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • The Porsche 917/30, just like in GRID 2019. It's very difficult to control the car, but with high power and with the right tuning, you can blast away at over 450 km/h.
  • In a similar vein, the Lotus Evija handles like a Beyblade if used in the wrong hands, but with its insane amount of power, it can blast 400+ km/h with the aide of a boost that you acquired from boost gates.
  • Fernando Alonso's 2006 championship-winning car, the Renault R26 is an extreme track toy but can also spin out if used improperly. A racing wheel would be highly recommended to handle this nimble speed demon, which allows you to blaze through the competition with ease and even potentially break Real Life track records.
• Do a Barrel Roll: While you can do this on ramps, the Winter Bash update enforces you to perform a barrel roll in order to complete the event objective and move on to the next chapter.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: Each of Driven to Glory's storyline chapter requires you to just simply finish in a target position (Usually between 3rd to 10th) or beat a specified rival. In which case, finishing in first place is absolutely not necessary. This is most important in Mixed Class events because there is a huge starting gap between each of the classes and you're only required to finish the race by beating some of the cars at the back of the field of the next class (your vehicle always travels faster than the class in front but most of the race won't be spent racing opponents, it'll be spent narrowing the gap). Trying to actually capture the checkered flag in these events is monumental because you're most likely in the twilight of the race by the time you even overturn the gap between your class and the class at the front of the grid.
• Eiffel Tower Effect: Just like the previous installments, it wouldn't be Paris, Moscow or London without the Eiffel Tower, Red Square and the Big Ben respecitvely.
• Face–Heel Turn: After Nathan McKane appeared to make a Heel–Face Turn in the previous game GRID 2019 by becoming a hireable teammate, he Took a Level in Jerkass in the story mode of this game, being an egotistical Jerk Jock who is willing to do anything to get Ravenwest the championship and refuses to take responsibility for his reckless driving, even when it causes a massive crash that results in Yume Tanaka losing a leg.
• Fake Difficulty: The game sure likes to rely on weather effects to make things difficult for the player. It says something that one of the first updates was one that added fog and dust (only for Dubai, Crescent Valley and Australian tracks).
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Nathan McKane, 5-time GRID Champion, is revealed to be a mediocre driver racing in an illegally overtuned car. Seneca are able to mortally wound his pride by taking the championship for him before reporting the modifications. That is until in Rise of Ravenwest, Nathan has evidence to secure his claim.
• False Camera Effects: The first three chapters of Rise of Ravenwest feature an effect that shows scan lines over the races, given that in-universe it's supposed to be old footage recorded in 2002 of Ryan McKane racing when he was still a young lad. Per popular request, the final major update added this effect available as an option for regular gameplay.
• Fauxrrari:
  • Legends features fictional models from fictional brands, even more so than in 2019, such as Beltra, Dumont and Jupiter.^note The latter two was also featured in Dirt: Showdown.
  • Exaggerated in Classic Car-Nage, where all of the cars available are the aforementioned fictional brands and models, possibly due to the issues involving asking licensees to allow showing damage to their vehicles.
• Fragile Speedster:
  • Similar to Autosport and GRID 2019, any vehicle in the open wheel class. Even the slightest bit of contact could cause terminal damage and leave a driver out of the race, which is why contact must be avoided at all costs in this discipline.
  • Added in Legends is the Track Day category. Hence the name, most are lightweight track-focused supercars that can blaze through the tracks at over 300 km/h, but a hard crumple from a collision can really ruin your performance during a race.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • No matter how many times you win several races in a row, the story's cutscene will continue as though you're barely scraping through (when The Gauntlet phase of the story begins Seneca will be at the very bottom of the table, only barely evading elimination in the runup - although this is at least justified in the actual story because they've only been fielding a single driver after Yume's crash and serious injury, even if your own driver's performance could still compensate for her absence if you've been dominating races in spite of it that would push Seneca higher up the table). Likewise McKane will constantly act dismissive of Seneca and its drivers even though you could have been stomping him time and time again in the actual races. Even your own team constantly sees you as a second driver with considerably less experience, treating Yume as the team's main driver and your role acting as her support in the races, never recognizing your on-track accomplishments and racecraft if you're consistently outdriving Yume (and this even continues when the accident happens, despite you being the only thing propping up the team's chances at all and keeping them in the running for entry into The Gauntlet, with remarks that you're only expected to do the best you can to keep the team in the running, as if the competition would ordinarily be too much for someone of your skill level without a more well-versed driver racing alongside you).
  • Regardless if you type in your name for your Player Character or your team, Driven to Glory characters will still refer to you as "Driver 22" driving for Seneca Racing.
• Genre Shift: GRID: Legends takes a series known for its No Plot? No Problem! nature and adds a Drive to Survive inspired campaign mode with Need for Speed: Most Wanted-style live action cutscenes.
• The Ghost: Marcus Ado makes mention of having a fiancée, and it's implied that some of the phone calls he makes through the game are with her (one such call at the start of the game has Ado greet the person at the other end of the line with a "Hello, gorgeous"), but she never makes an appearance.
• Glorious Mother Russia: A brand-new addition in GRID Legends is a race track in Moscow, across the Red Square. ^note That being said, the game was put in the awkward position of having been released on February 25, 2022, barely the day after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and noticeably enough, none of the subsequent DLC storylines for the game feature the track on any of their campaign missions, which mirrors to what Real Life does, when major sporting events held in Russia were pulled out as a response.
• Green Aesop: Pretty much any car from the Electric category falls under this trope, featuring eco-racers like the Porsche Taycan Turbo S, the Jaguar I-Pace Trophy, a Formula E Expy and even the hybrid Tushek TS 900 Racer Pro.
• Hostile Weather: Downplayed. The v2.0 update adds Fog and Dust ^note only in Dubai, Crescent Valley and Australian tracks conditions which hinder the drivers' visibility. Those aforementioned conditions however would be deemed too dangerous to race on in real life.
• Impressive Pyrotechnics: GRID Legends is fireworks incarnate. During each lap of a race, distant mortar shells can be seen and heard in the distance and trackside fireworks are timed to go off as the pack approaches them, even there are fireworks during daytime.
• Improbably Cool Car:
  • The 3.1 update adds a new free car: the Ford TFZ-P1 (or the Fordzilla), a VGT-style "Virtual Racing Car" that has the looks similar to the Ford GT90 concept.
  • The final major update adds the Bugatti Bolide, a track-only hypercar that can insanely go 300+ mph!
• In Medias Res: GRID Legends starts the story in a multiple race accident. Then it flashes back to 16 months prior and builds back up towards it.
• Justice by Other Legal Means: In the final cutscene of Legends, to ensure a corrupt team is tossed out wholesale, the GRID racing committee hand over evidence that gets Ravenwest's team principal indicted for every reckless and life-endangering act over the season via conspiracy charges, bringing the legal system down on the team far harder than any of their own sanctions could manage.
• Large-Ham Announcer: The GRID World Series commentators sure has a lot of Large Ham to bite on:
  • Inel, Claire's co-commentator. What emphasizes this trope is when Inel during an Elimination race shouts "ELIMINATION!" when two drivers at the back were sent packing.
  • Aaron, a co-commentator during in-game cutscenes fall prey to this trope. One example has this tendency to shout "CONTACT!" whenever two or more vehicles crash, such as in the Strada Alpina crash where Yume is injured.
  • In a similar vein, the female Drift Announcer is this in spades. Her commentary is full of hype and speaks out at the top of her lungs.
• Mad Libs Dialogue: Your control, Ajeet reporting on your last lap time.
  Ajeet: That last lap was a: (minute) [Beat], (second) [Beat], (millisecond)
• Manchild: Nathan McKane is an egotistical Jerk Jock who treats the GRID competition like a game he's entitled to win, reacts to having put on pressure by another team (Seneca) by projecting his bad attitude onto another (Voltz), and drives so recklessly (even by GRID standards) that he puts lives at risk. He never even takes responsibility for the latter, being aware that his team's reputation means he can do as he likes. He's also driving an illegally modified car to make up for his mediocre ability, and at the end of story mode he's made Persona Non Grata when the team's wrongdoings are brought to light.
• Marathon Level: While multiplying the career length is an option to make race lengths longer, the second major update adds Endurance racing, which the goal is to drive a certain amount of distance as possible within a given amount of time (about 10 mins. minimum).
• Mighty Glacier:
  • Apart from the Fragile Speedsters mentioned above, the game features Trucks in its own category. Ranging from stadium trophy truck, to NASCAR-style stock trucks and even a colossal longnose race lorry that takes up most of the garage space, forcing the camera to zoom out just to show its sheer size.
  • The Demolition Derby cars speak for itself.
• Mission-Pack Sequel: Let's just basically say it's GRID 2019, just with added cars, race modes, a storyline and tracks.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Ravenwest's number two driver Lara Carvalho was fed up of being always ordered to never surpass Nathan McKane, so she decisively quits the team and tells Seneca Racing engineer, Ajeet Singh everything she knows of Ravenwest's unlawful actions. In the end, Lara becomes a full-time Seneca Racing driver.
• Mythology Gag: The Winter Bash update includes the BMW M3 GTR has a special livery preset, resembling the iconic Most Wanted livery.
• New Year Has Come: The final chapter of Driven to Glory takes place in a decisive race held in Strada Alpina at exactly on New Year's Eve, on December 31, 2021, where both Seneca Racing and Ravenwest Motorsport go for a title fight who'll become the GRID World Series champion.
• Nitro Boost:
  • The game features a Mario Kart-style speed boost for electric vehicles. They can be only acquired by passing through "boost gates" which are off the ideal racing line, similar to how Attack Mode works in Formula E.
  • Some races feature boosts in a non-Electric car, as well as having boosts as a regular modifier. One example is the Equita Oil Sponsor Event, where your hot hatch is fitted with a speed boost. Another has one Winter Bash chapter with a BMW 2002 tii Race Car already fitted with a regular boost.
  • The Classic Car-Nage event adds speed boosts for demolition derby vehicles, giving you that extra punch needed to smash and wreck your rivals through the competition.
• No Fair Cheating: Track limits. Like in 2019, the player is penalized for cutting corners, with each infringement after the final warning adding to a cumulative time penalty at the end of the race.
• No Name Given: Due to the use of live-action cutscenes the player character is just referred to as "Number 22" or "22". The use of this is fairly obvious because the dialogue doesn't try to sidestep the use of the player's "name" even though they don't actually have one to say, using it about as frequently as someone's real name might be if they had one. Essentially it's Hello, [Insert Name Here] but the name you gave your driver never even comes up.
• No One Could Survive That!: There's a very small chance that those drivers involved in the Strada Alpina incident would actually survive this pileup as such speeds, Yume's car is seen getting T-boned by another driver at high speed and it's mentioned she lost a leg in the crash. Combined with the lack of tire walls or safety barriers at the track, and it's surprising nobody else was seriously injured.
• No OSHA Compliance: Athough the GRID World Series is fictional, several of the tracks they race on would simply be considered too dangerous by any sanctioning body to drive on in real life. Some of the worst offenders are the following:
  • The Okutama circuit is a winding street circuit that features a section in the mountains where the right side track boundary is the unprotected mountainside, which would be unacceptably dangerous for a full field of 22 drivers.
  • The Strada Alpina track takes the unshielded guard rails and cliffsides from Okutama and adds lengthy high speed straights in its longest layout, which measures over 7. 5 miles (12 km) in length. The length would also make it difficult for safety teams to navigate, which was one reason F1 abandoned the 12 mile (20 km) long Nürburgring Nordschleife.
  • Just like from the very first game, the Yokohama Docks track is even worse, as the track boundaries are made out of concrete warehouses, shipping containers and transport trucks, with few soft walls or tire barriers to be found, especially in areas where drivers would even fall down into the Tokyo Bay.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: Driven to Glory and its DLC storylines provide an extremely linear story that you must follow. For each chapter, you're given a fixed car to drive and most of the objectives are to simply place a certain position or higher.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The characters of GRID Legends refer to the player character as "Driver 22". Also counts as You Are Number Six.
• Opposing Sports Team: After years of Ravenwest being a subversion of this in previous games (in that, while they are the player's biggest rival team and do possess many attributes common in a generic "evil" team like insane skill, reputation as nigh unbeatable, and black and red paint scheme, they didn't cheat, drive particularly aggressive, show any sort of hostility toward the player and/or their team at any point during the career modes, or do much of anything to suggest they're anything other than a normal racing team), they finally played this straight in Legends, especially in regards of the McKanes. Even ignoring the prologue, Nathan McKane's Establishing Character Moment involves being an overconfident Jerk Jock who can barely fake a smile for the fans, drives recklessly and shows open contempt for his rivals and even his teammate Lara, and his uncle Ryan tells Lara to never overtake Nate and openly admits he buys the team's success. They're also cheating.
• Origins Episode: The Rise of Ravenwest storyline showcases the backstory of Ryan and Nathan McKane and its history of Ravenwest, where you discover how they rose to the Start of Darkness.
• Photo Mode: Though not in the base game, the free July update adds this feature, allowing you to create photorealistic in-game images using different camera types and special effects.
• Punny Name: Some chapters feature titles with puns related to the type of competition involved (a pickup race titled "Pickup the Pace", a drift event called "Catch My Drift?", etc.). One of the missions in story mode following Yume Tanaka after she returns to racing after losing a leg is even called "Yume Proceed" (as in, "You may proceed").^note This is the non-Japanese pronunciation of a Japanese name. An actual Japanese would pronunce Yume as "you-meh".
• Ramp Jump: Any race involving stadium tracks have ramps scattered throughout the track. You're not recommended to make those jumps though, unless you wanna gain XP or complete sponsor objectives. In the Race Creator, ramps are available as a modifier.
• Rice Burner:
  • The majority of the World Time Attack cars, just like in 2019. Their huge wings and comically large aerodynamic appendages, as tacky as they might look, make sense as they are combined with heavily souped up versions of their stock engines (they can easily reach as much as 1000 bhp), allowing them to be as fast as a Formula 2 car on a single lap.
  • The Volkswagen Cup Car is not your grandma's Beetle. It's a nimble track toy with a silhouette body kit and a large spoiler, fitted with a souped up engine .
  • Included as well is a Dumont Stampede, a tuned classic pickup based on the Chevrolet C/K pick up fitted with a large wing, a hood scoop and a splitter.
• The Rival: Ravenwest is the greatest threat to your championship aspirations, with Nathan McKane in particular is a classic example. Self-absorbed, aggressive and continuously faster than the player, Nathan would even make Ryo Watanabe jealous in these aspects.
• Scare Chord: An ominous chord plays when your teammate Valentin Manzi ^note or in the case of Driven to Glory, Yume Tanaka gets eliminated from an Elimination race.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: While snow is already one of the regular weather options, the Winter Bash storyline dials up the snow even further as every selected track from each chapter is draped in snow. Justified that it is obviously set in winter, hence the name.
• Shout-Out:
  • The game has the achievements "Reiko Fan Club", "Moon Above the Castle", and "San Francisco Rushing".
  • The achievements/trophies "Race Driver 1", "Race Driver 2" and "Race Driver 3" are a reference to GRID's predecessor series, the TOCA Race Driver trilogy.
  • Another achievement "Thanks for the Mad approval!" in which you drive a Jupiter Formula X refers to Slightly Mad Studios, the company behind Need for Speed: Shift and Project CARS, which also Codemasters acquired in 2019. In reference, the latter game also featured the Formula X, but under the SMS brand.
• Show Within a Show: The game's storyline is set in a Formula 1: Drive to Survive-style TV documentary.
• Stat Grinding: Need upgrades? Need to do Fully Upgraded events? Well, scoring mileage for each individual car is the only way to achieve it. There are 3 upgrade stages and each stage must reach a certain distance traveled to unlock it. It may be a chore to grind for milage, but the requirements for Fully Upgraded events aren't as intrusive, as it only requires you to reach Stage 2 to unlock it.
• Stealth Pun: Guess why you're called "Driver 22". Two things. 1) It's a 22 car race, and 2) the game itself is released in 2022.
• Style Points: You accumulate points for doing stunts like driving on the racing line, overtaking opponents, performing clean sectors/laps, drifting, or even as mundane as shifting gears (if you use manual transmission). At the end of the race, it's turned to Experience Points to level up your driver. Unlike the 2019 game, there's no limit of how many points you can accumulate per race.
• A Taste of Power: As soon as you launch GRID Legends' for the first time, you will be greeted with Driven to Glory's opening prologue – the fateful race at Strada Alpina in which Yume Tanaka suffers the crash that causes her to lose her leg, which means that you have a taste of the powerful Beltra Enduro 24 T, a fictional LMP-style race car.
• Unnecessary Roughness: This is one of the complaints leveled against Nathan McKane and Ravenwest at large in the storyline of Legends, with McKane triggering a multi-car pileup at the beginning of the campaign just because he won't let himself be passed. This later revealed in Rise of Ravenwest that it has been originated from his uncle, Ryan in a one-on-one race.
• Variable Mix:
  • Much like the early Need for Speed games, the music changes as you go through various moments during the race, and also gets another instrument track layered on top during the final lap.
  • The game's menu music plays a high-energy but dramatic orchestral score with intense brass and driving percussion. If you head to the options menu, the dramatic tune will play in a more relaxing and chilled-out manner.
• Wacky Racing: There are certain features that are quite impractical for a typical motorsports event, but are allowed here for the sake of Rule of Cool, like ramps on closed circuits that can be used beyond just stadium trucks or fitting a non-existent Nitro Boost on formula race car. The Classic Car-Nage update speaks this trope for itself.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Driven to Glory ends with Seneca Racing becoming the GRID World Series champions. So, that's it. Where are the characters up to after the ending?
  • Lara Carvalho becomes a full-time Seneca driver and is more confident with her new team.
    Lara: Seneca Racing. How do I look?
  • Ravenwest's reputation has been tarnished after their cheating and unlawful actions were brought to light. Nathan McKane's racing days are over while his uncle Ryan has been arrested for criminal conspiracy and reckless endangerment to the public.
  • After winning the championship, Seneca has received multiple sponsorship offers while Marcus plans to set up a brand new team, with Ajeet as The Engineer, while Marcus chooses Driver 22 and Valentin Manzi as their new drivers. This saga leads to the continuation of the game's career proper.
• World Tour: Hence the name "GRID World Series", like previous GRID games, the races in the story and career modes takes place on racing circuits all over the world.
• You Are Number Six: While the player can insert any name of their choosing to the game to appear on the scorecards, the characters of the game will refer to you as "Driver 22".