Location Spotlight: San Francisco

It’s hard to find many people who don’t remember that first race in Race Driver: GRID and it’s partly the reason why we’ve decided to bring back the iconic city of San Francisco into GRID Autosport.

The street-based circuit makes for some great pack racing, with overtakes having to be timed to perfection or the risk of running out of space and into a wall becomes all too real. San Francisco also has that special something that not many other real world cities have, gradient changes.

Racing uphill (and then down again) adds a whole new element to the racing experience and it often comes down to a battle between the brave and the sensible.

Do you go flat out downhill but risk landing your car awkward and potentially end up spinning out of control or do you take it sensible but running the risk of your brave opponent pulling it off? It’s choices like this that make San Francisco a great place to race around and we’re incredibly excited to see it return to the GRID series.

Going up!

As you can see from the panoramic shot above we’ve put a lot of work into turning San Francisco from a 2008 city into something more fitting for GRID Autosport. We caught up with Senior Art Director Nathan Fisher who shared his feelings about the iconic city.

“Of all the iconic cities we’ve featured in the GRID series, San Francisco has to be one of the most diverse and memorable of them all.

Starting on ‘The Embarcadero’ with views over the ‘Oakland Bay Bridge’, moving into the financial district on ‘Market Street’ with imposing buildings towering over a very technical section of track, leading you on to one of the most memorable sections of road in the world, the ascent up ’California street’ into the Chinese quarter and the descent down ‘Pacific Avenue’ with views over the city. Leading you past another iconic landmark of San Francisco, the ‘Transamerica Pyramid’ as you push back towards the finish line around the ‘San Francisco Bay Trail’.

Everything felt right about bringing this track back for GRID Autosport and for it to reap the benefits of the past six years of development within the EGO engine.

We can honestly say we have now achieved our original vision set back in 2008 for this location and the added track fidelity, new lighting and post process system has allowed us to create a more grounded and believable visual racing experience. San Francisco has set the benchmark for all our city locations.”

Remember this hill?

So there you have it, San Francisco is back and it’s looking better than ever. We can’t wait to see you roll up to the starting line and come June, we’ll be there, sat alongside you.

What do you think of San Francisco? Does it hold as many memories for you as it does us? Join in the GRID Autosport discussion over on our Forums, Facebook or Twitter.

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