A new Grid steers its way towards consoles and PC this year

Codemasters has announced that the racing franchise is back after a five-year hiatus, and Grid 2 is currently free to try as well.

British developer Codemasters has announced the return of Grid, its popular wheel-to-wheel racer known for fast-paced street racing action. All three previous iterations launched on last generation consoles, with the latter - Autosport - launching in 2014, so it's been a fairly long wait for another entry.

This next Grid is due to launch on September 13 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and will be the first in the series to take advantage of current generation technology. Players will have the ability to choose from a variety of options, including GT, Touring, Stock, Muscle, and Super-Modified cars across different race types like Circuit, Street Racing, Ovals, Hot Laps, Point-to-Point events, and World Time Attacks. One interesting new feature Codemasters has also mentioned is regarding a "nemesis" racer, who will seemingly be out to get you mid-race if you bump into them too much.

It seems as though Codemasters is trying to appeal to a broad range of racing fans, as Grid promises a learning curve that appeals to both casual arcade racers and those looking for a deeper racing experience. Dirt 4 followed a similar approach in 2016, whereas both Dirt Rally games focused on hardcore racing fans with realistic physics and often unforgiving driving mechanics, so fans will hope that Codemasters can capture some of that magic for this latest iteration.

The developer has also announced a partnership with Spanish F1 driver Fernando Alonso, who has not only been consulted for the handling, but will also feature in-game.

"Having competed across F1, Endurance and Stock Racing, Grid is the perfect game for me and I'm delighted the studio has added both myself and my racing team into the game. Grid offers so much variety and I welcome the challenge when players get to line-up against me," Alonso said.

Pre-orders for both the Standard and Ultimate Editions are live right now, with the Ultimate Edition containing seasons 1-3 of added content.

If you're itching to get back into older Grid games you might want to try out Grid 2, as that's totally free on Steam until later today, so you'd best be quick.

Have you missed Grid?