Not even a week after DuckTales: Remastered was removed from Steam, Grid 2 has followed it into the memory hole. Codemasters' racing game presumably had to be removed from sale for the same reason its predecessor did a couple of years ago—expiring licenses, either for its car models or the songs on its soundtrack.
Grid 2 was given away on the Humble Store in March, and the previous Grid was offered for free before disappearing as well. That's a nice way to go about it, making sure as many copies are out in the world as possible so that the historically minded can preserve them. It's certainly better than simply having games vanish out of the blue one day, as recently happened to Sega's spy RPG Alpha Protocol.
As is usually the case with Steam's delisted games, anyone who owned Grid 2 already will be able to download it in perpetuity. The next game in the series, confusingly called GRID, will be out on October 11.
Codemasters has just announced that an all-new Grid will be coming to consoles and PC later this year, with the fourth instalment in the series - called, simply, Grid - out on September 13th.
It comes over a decade after the original - which, I guess, we should now call Gr1d - which saw Codemasters shake up the racing genre with its introduction of the rewind mechanic. The slightly less-than-stellar Grid 2 followed in 2013, putting a heavy American twang on the whole thing, and was quickly followed up by Grid Autosport - or Grid 2: We're Sorry Edition - in 2014.
The new trailer, which features a host of GTLM machines as well as older vehicles, strongly suggests that the rewind feature will return for this instalment. It will feature racing across four continents, as well as input from Fernando Alonso, who's fresh from failing to qualify for this weekend's Indy 500 after McLaren painted its car the wrong colour and forgot to buy a steering wheel.
Codemasters’ 2013 racer Grid 2 is a fairly geriatric entry in the car-wot-goes-fast pantheon – so old that RPS’s prior coverage of it was written by the impossibly ancient likes of Rossignol, J. and Smith, A. – but we sure did like it back then.
I’ve just been back in and, yeah, it still looks and feels dang good for a non-car-gonk like me. Its cheeseball blend of arcadey racing, ludicrous damage modelling, time-rewinding, Chosen One storytelling and hilariously of-the-time achievement titles including “Here’s My Number, Call Me Maybe?” holds up remarkably well. I’d happily play that all day long. And free, as it is so is so long as you snag before the end of the weekend, is doubly hard to argue with.
The Codemasters racing game Grid 2 is an oldie but a goodie, earning 82/100 in our 2013 review. "More fun than a sim," we said, and "spectacular to look at," with challenging AI, plenty to do, and smooth performance on a mid-range rig. It's a testament to the game's durability that six years after release, it's still selling for $30 at regular price. For the next three days on the Humble Store, however, it is free.
And not just Grid 2, but also the Bathurst and Spa-Francorchamps track packs, each with new tracks to tear up and new cars to do it with. Just click the "Get the Game" button and follow the subsequent instructions, and Steam keys for all will be delivered unto you. Take note that the keys themselves are time-limited, and must be redeemed on Steam by 10 am PT on March 21, or they will expire and you will be left with nothing.
The Humble Store Grid 2 freebie will be available until 10 am PT on March 17, or while supplies last. Since that does actually happen—a limited number of codes are available for each giveaway—you probably shouldn't dawdle.