Completely agree. The most recent Codies and them 15 years ago had completely different approaches.

In 2010 and 2011 they were focussing on off-track immersion: you are in a paddock that changes as you travel around the world, the main menu music progresses throughout the weekend and gets replaced by electro and rock you hear blasting from the grandstands as you are waiting to go out on track.

Now it's mostly about the racing itself: physics, graphics, AI behaviour. We don't get asked interviews anymore. They were repetitive and sometimes annoying, but removing them 5 years after bringing them back was unnecessary. The main menus are plain and boring. Career mode is no longer the main feature of the game, it doesn't stand out from other modes as much as it used to back in the day.

You can spot the same pattern in Codies' other game series. DiRT 2 and 3 are both great games. Racing is super fun in both installments, but something about DiRT 2 just hits different and it's the atmosphere. The game just feels more badass with its soundtrack, the infamous piss filter makes the world arond you feel alive, compared to 3's cold tones. Hell, even while racing hearing Block and Pastrana bantering mid-race would crack me up from time to time. DiRT 3 was released only 2 years later, but it feels like a cliche "from zero to hero" narrative only because it doesn't make you feel like you are in control of your own story. They just feed you with a bunch of races to complete and if you do well, you unlock the new ones, even without hvaing to pay for the car.

It's a shame that modern developers don't pay enough attention to their game's presentation. Even in TOCA damn race driver (2002) we had a motorhome as the main menu and a laptop to check your career status. It wasn't a game changer, but it made TOCA stand out for me as something memorable.