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Grid 2 trailer shows Miami’s wide open streets and baying crowds

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Grid 2 screeches towards its release date with each passing day and until then it’ll continue belching out exhaust fumes of trailers and screenshots. We could stop this Youtube pollution if we could just ween ourself off onto less effects-laden promotional videos.

The latest footage is of two uncut laps from the game’s Miami track.

One of the big differences on show between the tracks of Grid and Grid 2 is the amount Codemasters have been able to open out the levels in this sequel. I don’t mean making the game into an open world – though, LiveRoutes is approaching that – but by having wider streets, showing more of the world outside of the track. Usually racing games have their tracks bordered by tall vision-occluding buildings that mean the game engine doesn’t need to spend its power rendering buildings in the distance. Here, Codemasters seem more comfortable generating a larger world.

Part of filling out that world is by adding in crowds of people. That was something also missing from the original Grid. There’s something about having a track lined with cheering polygons that makes the whole race seem more lively.

It’s difficult to say with a trailer but at 1.30 we may be seeing an instance of the game’s more aggressive AI.

Expect to jump into Grid 2 on 31 May.