New year, new season of Formula 1, new licensed videogame based on it. Codemasters, now under EA Sports’ banner, have been iterating and improving on the formula for a whopping 15 years now, with F1 23 IN PARTICULAR leaving us in a terrific spot to begin again on. Is F1 24 gonna be world champion material or is it a midfielder? We tested it out on Xbox Series X to find out!
Red light, green light
Ever since Codemasters landed Formula 1’s licensing deal all the way back in the late 2000’s, these yearly games have managed to hit a very satisfying golden middle ground between something simulation-like for hardcore fans and “serious” players, while also mantaining more than enough leeway, driving assists and options to make it a good time even for players who just want to go fast, not bothering much with rules, fairplay and so on. With a handling that feels quite professional on higher levels with assists turned off but arcade-y enough to be played on a controller as well, these F1 games have been a much popular mainstay for all fans of this highly technical and technological sport, one that’s been dominated by Max Verstappen and his Red Bull in recent years.
While I’m writing these words however, the season might suddenly have become interesting again, as Red Bull lost a lot of points recently and did not seem to be all that unbeatable anymore, with Ferrari and McLaren trying to catch up in the standings rather swiftly. In a similar fashion, one would expect EA Sports’ latest Formula 1 game to be a flawless slam dunk: after all, how likely is it for them to screw up something that works so well? And in truth, it’s still a mightly fine racer on its own that iterates on the previous year’s installment in many ways, but it also introduces new technical gremlins and it certainly does not feel as essential as F1 23 – depending on the kind of player you are, that is. I mean, for one, Braking Point is missing this year – Codemaster’s single player story mode, inspired by Netflix’s hit Formula 1 documentary Drive to Survive, is taking a year break like it did in F1 22, and is therefore missing this time.
Career evolved
Fret not, because the game’s career mode is better than ever. In fact, I struggle to think of a racing game that has a career mode as wide, customizeable and varied as F1 24. By now, there’s so many ways people can enter the exciting world of Formula 1. They can get into the shoes of an existing driver (including historic legends like Michael Schumacher or Nigel Mansell, somehow transported into our days) or create a new one, drive for an existing team or become the team owner of one, start from all the way down in Formula 2 or already in a top team in F1, play solo or in co-op with a friend online… I could go on for a while here. There’s even a brand new Challenge mode, where competition with people online gets thrown into the mix by assigning points to our racecraft over the span of 3 weekly races in time-limited mini-campaigns over specific conditions and tracks. These slices of career still have all the ins and outs of the regular career mode, such as car development, testing and so on, just with more specific rulesets that allow people to beat one another in the leaderboard.
But no matter which mode you choose, by now, Codemasters’ Formula 1 games offer practically unprecedented freedom and player agency in the career mode – making it much closer to said mode of a game like FIFA or NBA, rather than a racer. Players can choose to micromanage every aspect of the team and their drivers’ path: team changes, now even secret meetings and contract shenanigans, all the way down to budgeting upgrades, managing which of the allocated engines and tyres we shall use in a specific weekend, whether we wanna play through the whole practice sessions or just simulate them, reduce the qualifying session’s length to even a single lap instead of doing the whole Q1 to Q3 procedure, and so on. Players can even choose to rely on the game’s reputation system to dictate much of the events that transpire, as diligently doing the team-proposed tests, getting good results, driving clean and not damaging the car will increase the teams’ estimate towards us, allowing us to get better car upgrades or offers in the future. Newcomers and hardcore Formula 1 fans alike, regardless of the amount of time they want to invest in the career mode, can truly create the F1 experience of their dreams, with a level of control over the day-to-day operations that, truly, no other racing game on the market can offer.
Heart of racing
The astonishing level of customization, of course, also applies to every single game mode, vastly impacting the driving experience as well. Players can decide to go full simulation (well, simcade at least) by using a proper racing wheel, of which virtually every console one is properly supported with Force Feedback and whatnot, and turning off every possible assist. More casual players can turn on braking and turning assists, have visual aids to help braking, increasing the stability of the car via the (now banned in actual F1) traction control, and so forth – all this on controller, where this way the driving model feels challenging but fair and arcade-y enough to be accessible to most. Even mechanical failures, damage following contacts with other cars, or even the collisions themselves can be turned on and off at the player’s leisure, as control is truly in their hands. This, of course, can then be used in any offline and most online modes as well, with many online activities even allowing players to set specific driving settings that are the same for everyone – for example, the host of a session can impose a ban on automated pit stop sequences.
If all that weren’t enough, as fans of Codemasters’ franchise know by now, cars’ setups can be customized to ludicrous levels by now, allowing experienced players (or those who can Google the best setups) to gain multiple seconds per lap by tweaking the vehicle just right. While playing offline this isn’t by any means necessary, it becomes practically obligatory for those who want to climb leaderboards or go far into the online competitions. To put it in AI difficulty’s perspective: a skilled player is unlikely to be able to compete, on most tracks, beyond difficulty 85-90 using the default setups, as the opponents’ laptimes simply start becoming too damn good. The difficulty goes all the way up to 110 though. Fortunately, a lot of tools and websites online can help players find the right difficulty for their skill level and, of course, the most optimal setups for their racing style – be it with a controlle or racing wheel, with a lot of assists or none of them. As such, don’t despair if a player online is blatantly faster on every straight and can take a difficult corner full-throttle with ease – the most likely scenario is that their setup is simply better, so get tweaking!
Around the (F1) World
Last year’s comprehensive “casual” game mode F1 World is back, too. Once again, players get a custom F1 car that they can play all kinds of pre-made or custom events with, both against the AI and online, with their cleanness and fairness on track impacting their safety ranking in the process. By getting good results in these events, players can obtain new car parts (or craft them directly), that increase the car’s performance level, in turn allowing participation in more advanced events as well. With even sponsors, managers as such to assign these cards for, with some of said aspects being limited only to a certain amount of events, once again this is Codemasters’ sort-of-inspired-by-Ultimate-Team mode, without all the nasty microtransactions and grindy competition that happens in FIFA (well, FC nowadays), Madden and the likes. As last year, even the standard free races are encompassed in this game mode, so many different modes can help achieving the results we want in this mode.
Naturally, all the online aspects of F1 23 are back with a vengeance: custom races, ranked events, tournaments, weekly events against the AI and more. Aside from some technical issues, of which we’ll get back to in a couple paragraphs, I’ve found the general online experience to be enjoyable and solid, with only occasional hiccups due to some players having poor connections. While racing in casual modes can be a pain due to a lot of the “less serious” players ramming one another, this issue can be sidestepped by keeping a high safety rating in F1 World – just stick to A level, and you will seldom encounter the most toxic racers the community has to offer. As expected, F1’s own battle pass, the Pit Pass is also back, allowing players to gain XP in any game mode, even time trial or free races, to level up the pass and gain all kinds of cosmetic stuff like new suits or liveries. In a similar fashion, players can buy credits for real money to obtain even further cosmetic items – frankly, with the already free or Pit Pass items and with these games only lasting a year, it’s still something that’s not really worth investing in, considering that once again nothing is carried over from the previous game and we have no reason to believe that what we bought will be brought over to F1 25 either.
Being a fan
One of the few big additions to F1 24 is the so-called Fanzone. Here, players can choose their favourite team and driver, then join a community of similarly tasted folks, being then allowed to compete against each other or help one another out. Players in said areas can also go out and compete in special events against those from other communities, which subsequently gives points and rankings on each side. At the end of each of the game’s seasons, the driver and team communities will be ranked on their results, and the best-placed ones will gain nice rewards for representing and contributing to the greater cause. It’s hardly an essential addition, but it’s yet another way inside these F1 games that allow players to find themselves a community of sorts. Even outside of this game mode, however, the feeling of being surrounded by the actual F1 drivers has been greatly improved upon, with real radio broadcasts from the actual drivers being hearable in events, brand new introduction videos made in the paddock and so on. Before, the likenesses and voices of actual F1 drivers has usually only impacted a few pre-baked podium scenes and not much else, but by now they truly make us feel like part of the glamorous Formula 1 paddock.
What I certainly wasn’t a fan of was the technical issues I encountered during gameplay. While the game looks great and has all kinds of customization, with HDR available, 120hz mode running like a dream if your TV/monitor supports it, the crashes and sudden game failures were a lot more baffling. I encountered multiple crashes, including hard ones where I had to restart my whole console, with even mid-race instances where the entire game world just straight-up became pitch black, with only the menus working – nothing I could there until I restarted the game completely. Even loading times seem to be much longer than ever, even on Series X’s great SSD, with various menus such as the mail often becoming impossible to exit – once again, forcing a reboot of the whole game. These issues weren’t really around in previous years’ games, and I hope they will be fixed as soon as possible, as they ended up impacting or straight-up ruining multiple gaming sessions and individual races. It’s a kind of lack of polish that we really aren’t used to see in Codemasters’ games, so I wonder what happened. Between the lack of particularly impactful additions and these technical gremlins, perhaps the harsh timeframe of having to release a new, AAA Formula 1 game every 12 months is catching up to this experienced team? We’ll see soon enough if F1 24’s slightly more problematic launch state was just a fluke or a sign of things to come.
Bono, my evenings are gone
With a further improved career, the cute Fanzone mode, a more believeable presentation and some much welcome finetuning here and there, F1 24 is once again the place to be for all Formula 1 fans who want to experience the thrills of the races on their home console or PC – newcomers and pros alike. Those who aren’t planning to immerse themselves in the revamped single player segment too much or aren’t that hardcore about the sport, may not find F1 24 to be an essential upgrade at all, with no new Braking Point chapter, no notable new game modes or features – with even a handful of brand new, rather annoying technical issues to be found. None of this, of course, negates the excellent gameplay loop the series has masterfully iterated upon for over a decade now, and I know in my heart that I’ll spend plenty of hours on this episode as well, long after I finish up this review. But unless you’re knee-deep into these games’ or the sports’ community, like I am, you can probably stick to F1 23 a while longer.
F1 24
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- All the strengths of previous years' games
- Already insanely customizeable and great campaign further expanded
- New animations, cutscenes and audio recorded directly from the F1 drivers
- This year's long F1 calendar means a lot of tracks
- Still a blast online
CONS
- Very safe sequel this time
- Various new technical issues
- Breaking Point story mode is usually missing every other year - this is that year
