The most diverse range of motorsports ever in one game

Codemasters, creators of genre-leading motorsport video games, will once again drive racing gaming forward with Race Driver 2: The Ultimate Racing Simulator.

Designed as the definitive racing game experience, the game will launch Spring 2004 for Xbox, complete with Xbox Live functionality.

Race Driver 2 will provide petrol head gamers with the most diverse range of challenging motorsports ever seen in one game. Over 30 global championships will be featured, with players competing in events including GT Sports Car Racing, Street Racing, Rally, DTM, V8 Supercars, Global GT Lights, Rally Cross, Formula Ford, Open Wheel Grand Prix and Classic Car Racing.

The title is Codemasters' most ambitious motorsport project to date, with heavy investment in officially licensed content including cars, tracks and championships. Race Driver 2 will deliver an incredible selection of aspirational cars. 35 of the world's most powerful racing and street cars will be fully simulated – including Aston Martin (V12 Vanquish, DB7 and DB5), Jaguar (XJ220, XKR and E-Type), Ford (Mustang Cobra R, Ford GT, GT90, F150 Lightning Pick-up, Falcon BA), Holden Commodore VY, Mitsubishi 3000 GT, Mitsubishi EVO 7, Subaru Impreza WRX, ABT-Audi TT-R, Opel Astra V8 Coupe and AMG-Mercedes CLK

The all new championship structure features 56 racing circuits from around the world including Laguna Seca, Surfers Paradise, Euro Speedway, Donington Park, Kyalami and Road America and new exotic locations from Miami to Tokyo.

It's on these world famous circuits that Race Driver 2 will demonstrate its completely new physics model, deformation damage system, graphics engine and AI.

Codemasters' key racing studio is creating the title with Gavin Raeburn, producer of the TOCA games, leading development and production:

"Race Driver 2 will be our most ferocious motorsport game yet, with the gameplay distilling the pure adrenaline of the different styles of racing.

"A vast collection of real motorsports, real rules and real racing cars will combine with our most advanced and intuitive handling model to date. Every physical nuance of each vehicle type is accurately modelled, from tyre deformation when cornering to the centrifugal engine forces and complex aerodynamics."

"Visually, it's going to be stunning. Our new rendering engine features complex dynamic lighting, perspective mapped shadows, multipass textures, procedural standing grass and a host of post production techniques including true motion blur, depth of field and iris effects – all at a rock steady 60fps."

Race Driver 2 continues the pioneering use of cinematic plot in racing games with the whole narrative being played out completely from the first person perspective. You see what the lead character sees and you create your own history.

Race Driver 2's high-detail cinematics will follow the player and a band of race drivers competing globally with high-tension eliminator consequences. The 'reality TV' style eliminator story captures the competitive intrigue of 12 drivers battling their way to win the ultimate racing experience: a drive as a Masters Grand Prix professional. Visually the cinematics will be triple the detail of TOCA Race Driver with characters created from over 12,000 polygons.

From the game's core development team, which began work on the title in summer 2002, the full Race Driver 2 team now has over 40 of Codemasters' finest motorsport game engineers on the project.

Race Driver 2 will launch in spring 2004 for Xbox, complete with Xbox Live online play. Register for development and game updates online at www.codemasters.com