Dirt 3, Operation Flashpoint: Red River Due in Q2 2011; New Grid in 2012

Codemasters' rally racer Dirt 3 and its battlefield shooter Operation Flashpoint: Red River are slated for release "between 1st April and the end of June" in 2011, the developer and publisher's CEO Rod Cousens has told Eurogamer.

Dirt 3 and some Operation Flashpoint: Red River artwork.

"I don't think it does any good to publish in a congested period when everyone's putting out their shooters," he said, explaining that "A number of leading companies have their fiscal year ends around that time, and so they'll be firing heavyweights in terms of their product releases to give as much boost to their fiscal year end as they possibly can."

With that in mind, Red River and Dirt 3 will be released in the second quarter of 2011.

Speaking on Dirt 3, Cousens said that "What we're not going to do is do more of the same with each rendition of the game... Let's put it into context. It's from probably the finest racing studio in the world. It's between us and the Need for Speed guys, and I would argue we're better."

Cousens also revealed that Codemasters' sequel to Race Driver: Grid, which was quietly confirmed in July, is due to follow in 2012. Unfortunately, he didn't share any more information about the mysterious game.

"We're not difficult to predict," he said. "If DiRT comes out next year, GRID will come out the following year, and then DiRT will be out the year after that. So you can map us out. Sitting alongside that will be F1 every year. Flashpoint we'll do every other year. The idea is to come up with a new IP that sits in opposite years to each other, but we're in the racing segment and the action segment."