F1 24 Review

In recent times Formula 1 has enjoyed a steep rise in interest, particularly in the US, Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ and the epic championship battle between Verstappen and Hamilton in 2021 means that Formula 1 has once again found itself in the spotlight, bring out the champagne, leather suits and chest hair because Formula 1 is officially cool again. In the gaming industry, such coolness and popularity draws the gaze of EA Sports. The financial might and developmental manpower that sports game titan can bring is unparalleled in the industry, it can propel a game to new heights and the F1 games are once again mainstream, but being is being under EA’s wing necessarily a good thing?

The production values that EA are capable of injecting are obvious to see in F1 24, this game looks so visually impressive. The driver face models look much better than in previous iterations, where they looked more like Play-Doh drivers, however they do sometimes slip into the uncanny valley, but with graphics as close to real life as they have ever been, this is almost unavoidable. The cars look incredible, and EA Sports have continually updated the liveries to reflect their real-life counterparts, they look great during replays and just as good from the cockpit. The tracks themselves also look just as they do in real life, the surface and the environs are both incredibly photo-realistic, hurtling round them at great speeds feels immersive, not only do the tracks look and feel real, but the game creates an astonishing sense of speed.

EA have done a great job with the handling model, the F1 games have always walked the line between arcade and simulation and this iteration is no different, maybe leaning slightly towards arcade this time. As a game marketed towards the casual F1 fan, F1 24 is unsurprisingly not expecting you to understand how to drive an F1 car, at the same time it wants you to feel like you are. While the driving is accessible it does also require focus, it's not a pure arcade experience, surface and tyre wear is simulated so clumsy driving will be punished and although the cars feel very grippy, it is easy to spin out if you’re too trigger happy on the throttle. If you’re not interested in anything being too realistic the simulation elements can be toned down, and there are plenty of assists to ease newer players into the driving, so the barrier to entry is low, I’m not a huge racing game guy and I found it easy to pick up the driving. The more serious sim racers may find it to be lacking realism, but for me, a casual fan, it does a great job of making me feel like I’m driving a Formula 1 car, without punishing me for not knowing how to actually drive one.

The look of F1 24 reinforces the immersion that goes hand in hand with the career modes, which come in two varieties. One is the driver career mode and the other is MyTeam, the former is focused on taking control of a custom or current driver and experiencing their career. Driver career will let you work your way up from F2, allowing you to breakthrough into F1 where you can switch teams and work your way up to the bigger ones, or take control of a current driver and changing their fortunes, can you win the championship with Norris? Or get the coveted eighth with Hamilton? Maybe you can finally break the curse of the Red Bull second driver. MyTeam is more focused on the management side of things, you will need to upgrade your car and facilities in the hope of making a championship winning car. Both capture the essence of their intention and whilst neither have Football Manager levels of depth, they are a fun and engaging way of getting close to the cockpit of a Formula 1 driver, or the pitwall of your own Formula 1 team.

The career modes, beautiful graphics and fun driving combine to create a fundamentally brilliant Formula 1 game. But the money and might of EA sports comes with a hidden cost. As the 4th installment in the EA Sports version of the game, it is becoming clear that the tendrils of the sporting behemoth are rooting themselves deep within the franchise. In F1 22, “F1 Life” was introduced, which added a player avatar and the ability to buy clothes, accessories and supercars. A rather odd inclusion as it doesn’t add anything to the driver or career modes. F1 23 added to this with “F1 World” which functions a lot like EA FC’s ultimate team. You will compete in races to unlock car parts and staff members to make your car faster, in the same way that in Ultimate Team you unlock players and managers for your Football team. This provides a constant stream of content as you can constantly upgrade your car to compete in more races, however as a player who plays the F1 games for the immersion of the career modes, I found competing in these races full of random players with wacky liveries and usernames to be intrusive and immersion breaking. Players who just enjoy the racing element of these games and nothing more than that will most likely find much more enjoyment in it than I did.

Disappointingly however I can’t help but feel that the focus in this new mode has detracted from the attention given to the games career modes, which I feel is the strong point of F1 games, and I predict that as more F1 games get released, they will continue to shift focus into F1 world and forget about career, which is exactly what has happened in EA FC, as Ultimate Team has categorically become the focus of each release. The Podium Pass is also a frustrating gatekeeper to the content within the game, whilst in previous versions it was a small addition that quietly gave you small little unlocks in the background as you played, it is now much more obvious how much content is locked behind the premium tier, which you need to pay for. The thing that disappointed me the most was upon starting MyTeam there was only one livery, with the rest requiring “PitCoin” to unlock, which requires real life currency to purchase, or gained as a premium tier reward, which you also need to pay for. Even in the older games that had liveries locked behind PitCoin, you at least got a generous selection of liveries to choose from without needing to buy any. This year you can choose from one livery for your own custom team, not being able to choose a livery defeats half the point of creating your own team. It is a bad omen of the direction that the franchise may be heading in.

As is typical of a yearly sports iteration, this F1 24 version of the F1 game does not change or improve enough upon its predecessors to justify a £60 pricetag, this, in fairness, is not just an EA Sports issue and is commonplace in the whole Sports Game industry. You can get the same experience for a fraction of the price by purchasing an older title or wait for a few months for the price to plummet. EA Sports (and other sports game developers) count on the players need for updated rosters to keep their prices high, so if you’re willing to race in an older season of F1, you are better off purchasing an older version of the game.

So, while F1 24 is a nicely packaged, fun and approachable representation of Formula 1, it has a steep price tag that is difficult to justify as it is far too similar to the games that it succeeds, the more hardcore racers may also question the handling model. However, ignore the questionable business practices and microtransactions and what you have is a very fun racing game that has a good career mode that will provide hours and hours of fun for F1 fans and racing fans in general. The core of this game is terrific, one just hopes that EA Sports will build on the solid foundations it has created in the future instead of focusing on F1 world, Podium Pass and microtransactions.

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