On Friday, GRID Autosport ($9.99) soft launched in New Zealand, which seemed a little odd as you don’t typically see full-blown premium games soft launch. However, after fiddling around a bit with the game, which just hit the US App Store this afternoon, it seems like there’s a pretty complicated post-install download process they were likely testing out. The game itself is a 4GB download from the App Store, then on first launch you’re given the prompt to download additional content and high resolution textures. These are delivered as free IAP, and together they’re around 2GB, bringing the total installed size of GRID Autosport to just under 6GB in total on my iPhone X.

I’ve been fiddling around for a bit in the game, and it’s unbelievably impressive- Making the game’s controversial hardware requirements totally make sense. Basically, you’re going to need an iPhone 7 or newer, and you’re probably going to want to play with a battery pack or outlet nearby as this game is a battery drain and a half. I’ve only played a few races, but I’m blown away by the depth this game has to offer. It’s not often that I find myself in mobile games that have so much content, so many cars, and so many different things you can do that it’s just overwhelming.

Hell, even the races themselves feel wonderfully foreign as they’re long, which is a very welcome change from all the bite-sized freemium racers we’ve seen take over the App Store. The other side of the coin on this is that if you’re used to mindless racers like CSR or similar, you’re going to be overwhelmed by the difficulty of GRID Autosport, even playing on the lowest difficulty. This is a real deal racing simulator, and plays like it.

We’ve got a thread in our forums that has been filling up with first impressions, which have largely been positive. We’ll have a full review up soon, but in the meantime if you’ve been hungry for a “real" racing game on the App Store, and you’ve got an iPhone 7 or newer, GRID Autosport is a game you need to download right away.