I was prepared to go to a game presentation at GC Leipzig without knowing anything about the game. All I knew it was that the game will be published by Codemasters and will feature some off-road races. Nothing new! And frankly at that time nobody knew too much about this new project of Codemasters. So I was pretty excited to find out more about it. Sebastian Wloch (Managing Director) and David Dedeine (Director of Production) from Asobo Studios conducted the whole presentation. Being in an early stage of developing the whole presentation was based on Power Point sheets scattered from time to time with some screenshots taken from the game. Quite poor, but what we have found out had blown our minds.

Fuel takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has been ravaged by global warming and the fight for fuel. As the last deposits of fuel are running out, a new extreme sport has arise. A race for fuel with futuristic cars made and tuned in hidden garages by "normal people". In a few words that's the whole story, and it actually ends here. The rest is racing across wildly various terrain that combines snow, arid river-beds, and open wilderness. Featuring 5,000 square miles (14,000+ km²) Fuel has the biggest racing environment based on a cutting-edge proprietary engine. This engine is the result of almost four years of development. Using the most advanced streaming techniques, the engine can recreate huge terrain surfaces based on satellite readings. The world in Fuel has been created manually inspired by authentic American landmarks, with recognizable places such as Death Valley and Mount Rushmore created after real satellite readings.

But all this hugeness doesn't matter if you don't have the liberty to roam freely in it. In Fuel freedom is a key word. With an open-view of 40 km, you can explore freely the entire environment. Wherever you want to go you can go. There will be challenges based on freedom, in which you have to explore and find secret places or reach special destinations. But you have to pay attention as you will encounter several weather obstacles that might make change the course. A dynamic extreme weather system will create extreme changes such as rainstorms, sandstorms, tornados which have the power to transform the terrain, blizzards, lightening strikes. So you have to think twice before choosing a route. The route-planning is very easy thing to do as the game will deliver a smart GPS system which calculates the most optimal route.

Singleplayer and multiplayer modes are combined into an ad-hoc system similar to what Test Driver Unlimited had offered. So the whole career is made up of hundreds preset challenges and locations where you can race against 16 A.I. controlled opponents or against 16 human opponents due to the fully-integrated multiplayer. There are also locations where you can meet other friends to show off you skills and your customized vehicles with two or four wheels. Every vehicle has its own stats which will influence your way of driving. You always have to choose the right vehicle for soft, hard, flat, sandy, or snowy terrain surfaces.

If you still thing that what this game has to offer is not enough, than you can use the missions editor and create new locations where you can invite your friends to race on your own created tracks.

I'm looking forward to this game which is planned to be released somewhere in 2009. Its hugeness and fully-integrated multiplayer into the career, will probably define a new type of massive multiplayer experience.