Codemasters has one of the richest backgrounds in driving games in the industry. From dusty back roads of rally to the 24 hours of Le Mans, they’ve put it in a game. Now, like before with Dirt, they’re going back to the drawing board and coming up with more ideas to give hardcore racing fans something different to play. Grid, the reimagining of the ToCA series aims to put the focus of the driving game back on the driving.

If you missed out on our previous coverage, Grid is Codemasters’ second racing entry for this generation behind last year’s Dirt. Built on an upgraded version of the same engine, Grid will feature 50 hand-picked cars, a ton of real-world roads and fresh licensed tracks across the U.S., Europe and Japan. The game will feature an RPG-esque single-player mode that starts players as a rookie driver and gives them a chance to earn money by driving for various teams. When the player makes enough, they’ll have the chance to start their own team and even hire an AI teammate from 600 unique AI types. Also featured in the game is the legendary 24 hours of Le Mans. Scaled down to 24 minutes in career, players will have a chance to compete at the end of every season.

Although the demo we played was short, we still got a good feel for how the game should play. Firing it up, the first thing players do is input their first and last names—and also choose an audio name from a huge list. This little touch is really cool and gives the game a lot of added depth. Now both the narrator and pit crew can address the driver on a more personal level. After that step, we were thrust into an intro race featuring a Dodge Viper, while the voice from the pit crew guided us through various obstacles on the track like crashes or steep hills and even gave advice about the car.