Back in March, developer Caged Element announced that the Rollcage-inspired GRIP: Combat Racing Evolved is getting a surprise sequel after ten years with GRIP XR, described as a “stylised spin-off.”
Once again, the sequel sees you race flappable cars that can drive up walls at dizzying speeds, while destroying opponents with weapons. A new crank mechanic makes this easier with boosters that instantly flip the car left or right when activated.
Since then, the project was crowdfunded on Kickstarter, followed by a playable demo previewing the developer’s vision for the game. Now, the project has been renamed GRIP 2: Combat Racing Evolved, and a second playable demo has arrived on Steam.
In a post on Steam, the developer explains that the previous name was “confusing as hell to a lot of people” as XR stands for Extended Reality and “people thought this was a new VR-only version of GRIP.”
“We think this game will be worthy of sequel status now that we’ve been working on it more since the last demo,” the developer added.
Discussion
The first GRIP was really pretty fun, so I hope this one is successful in adding new features. The level creator for custom tracks will be neat … as long as they are easily found and sharable. With that level of personalization I wonder how the tracks will be curated. Dirt 5 had some great ideas like this, but levels could be buried quickly.
I could not get my head around the controls when playing the demo. I can imagine it being really satisfying for those that can master it.