F1 24 VIDEO GAME PREVIEW - A YEAR OF CHANGE
This year’s new F1 game from EA brings major changes to the cars’ physics and modelling, plus the chance to play as real-life drivers.
Sustaining and developing an annual sports game franchise is a much tricker task than you might imagine. There’s the eternal dilemma of wanting to add new elements, which in turn encourage people to buy that particular iteration, which is always in conflict with the short one year development cycle. Then there’s the need to provide a reflection of the sport you’re depicting which is as accurate as possible. And how can you entice gamers who aren’t necessarily hardcore fans of that sport to splash out on your game?
At least Codemasters, the British outfit which has been developing F1 23 review – return of the racing soap opera (and was bought by publisher EA in 2021) has had a near-unprecedented amount of practice at negotiating that particular tightrope and, over the past 15 years, has established an enviable reputation for the quality of its racing games. That’s just as well, since Formula One is the undisputed pinnacle of motorsport, which means being the custodian of its officially (and very expensively) licensed game franchise comes with a lot of responsibility.
Our first look at this year’s effort came via an online press event helmed by Codemasters’ stalwart senior creative director Lee Mather, with the help of senior game designer, lead vehicle handling Casey Ringley, who started off as a modder before joining the F1 development team. The presentation was divided into three sections, entitled physics and handling; career mode; and updates to tracks, drivers and teams.
Before launching into the presentations, Codemasters aired the game’s launch trailer, featuring tracks including Spa and Monaco and promising premium technology updates and a new career mode. The tagline – ‘Become one of the 20’ – hints at how that career mode will differ from previously, with the 20 referring to the fact that Formula One has 10 teams and 20 drivers.
Mather and Ringley began by detailing a number of changes to the game’s all-important physics and handling models, which should result in the cars feeling markedly different to those in last year’s game. Given that those upgrades are designed to bring F1 24’s virtual physics closer to those of the real-life cars, this year’s cars should feel more like their real-life counterparts than ever before.
The first fundamental system that Codemasters has upgraded for F1 24 is the cars’ suspension kinematics. Mather explained that those changes should bring much more of an indication of the weight transfer that occurs in real-life racing, with the cars squatting under acceleration and diving under braking.
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2024-05-07T15:33:40Z dg43tfdfdgfd