F1 24 Review

The annual release of the official Formula One game is here, and we’ve been lucky enough to get our hands on a review copy. Before we get started, this will be the 5^th year I’ve reviewed the Formula One game for Xbox Tavern and this year I’ve been less hyped than usual about the upcoming release. Will the new additions to the career mode which has it first significant updates since 2016 spark the passion back in me or will I be left deflated like an overused Pirelli tyre? 

Let’s start with the big update for career mode; it’s been 8 years since any significant update for the vanilla career mode which is absolutely crazy in my eyes! But nevertheless, the career mode is what Codemasters and EA are championing this year and to be fair, first impressions are positive! 

For the first time ever in career mode, you don’t have to create a custom driver – you can select a current driver or one of the legendary icon drivers. Current drivers have only ever been available to use in Grand Prix mode so if you’re a fan of Lando Norris and want to realise his dream of becoming an F1 world champion, or perhaps you want to win Lewis Hamilton or Michael Schumacher their 8^th drivers title, then you can certainly try. 

The UI has had a big facelift and there are lots of new features to get stuck into. Since the addition of the My Team mode, the vanilla career mode has pretty much been the same except for owning the team. Now they feel like separate modes. First off, you can’t upgrade facilities to upgrade your driver or teammate. You now organically improve your stats by performing well in races and improving your rating will be part of your contract negotiations. Fail to improve enough and you might not be offered an extension (this also counts for the current and icon drivers you can take control of). 

Improving your overall rating is one of the goals you’ll have in your contract and if you’re having a poor season then you can ask to review your contract and adjust what your overall rating target is. This does have negative consequences though so make sure you’re prepared to face them. If you’ve signed a multi-year contract you could break your contact if another team offers you a drive, but once again this will have negative consequences with your current team so make sure it’s worth it. 

There is also now driver recognition. Your driver recognition determines how much control you have over the car’s development. Each driver in the team will receive regular resource points to spend on car development. Your teammate might have a different idea on how to develop the car going forward, so if you intend on focusing on one area of the car to upgrade then improving your recognition will be vital. Finally, after all these years driver ratings seem to matter. You can track how your stats improve over the season and compare yourself to the other drivers on the grid. 

Specialists have also been added to career mode and will give you goals between each race. Completing these goals will give you access to extra perks to help with your R&D including decreasing upgrade times, reducing the resource point cost and earning more resource points from practice programs. I have to say it’s a nice change from just upgrading the team’s factory with money and will get players actively driving more to earn their upgrades and perks. 

That’s the meaty part over. Practice sessions are still the same as they have been for the last few years and to be honest, that’s OK with me as they can get a bit ‘samey’ after a while, but you have the option to simulate them whilst still getting maximum resource points. The new feature here is during the actual race. At any point during the race your race engineer will set you a target, which can be any of but not limited to; overtaking the person in front of you by a certain lap, beating a certain lap time or conserving a certain amount of fuel. These kinds of targets are a welcome addition to race weekends and certainly add a bit more spice. 

There are 3 other career modes as well including My Team, which once again hasn’t had any updates, but because they’ve focused so much on the driver career they can get a pass from me for this year. Two player career is back so if you have a sibling or a friend that you want to play alongside, you once again have the option to be in the same or different teams. 

The 4^th career mode is new and is called Challenge Career. In this mode you and everyone else will take control of the same driver and have to complete events that are identical with everyone else. Completing these events and scenarios will put you on a global leaderboard. So, if you’re keen for some real person competition without the fear of getting taken out by some random idiot in online lobbies then this will be the mode for you. 

The biggest gripe for me in career modes is the lack of customisation options. With seemingly only one option for most items it appears things such as car liveries, helmet designs and podium celebrations have all been gutted. It means that you’re unlikely to see much variation with people’s career modes. I’ve already seen one youtuber mod the game to have his custom helmet in game when he usually waits until season 2 or 3 to do it… This could be a ploy for people to purchase the podium pass, but then the first podium pass only has 2 car liveries and 2 helmets from 50 levels so I’m not sure what the end game is here.  

The second big thing that Codemasters was shouting about pre-launch was the new Dynamic Handling. There’s now a big difference between how the pad and wheels feel when driving a car, previous years have felt that the games handling veered toward favouring players using a wheel. It’s hard to explain but the game plays differently based on what you use. For wheel users, imagine driving a real life car, you’re coming up to a sharpISH turn and rather then the usual braking and then turning you could just take your foot off the pedal and yank the wheel in the direction and it’ll turn, defying the laws of tyre grip. For the pad I found myself having to break earlier than usual or I would always overshoot a corner – this may be down to 90% of my time spent playing F1 on a wheel so pad users may experience something different. Overall it’s made the game feel more like an arcade game then simulation, which for me ruins the immersion of doing a career mode

You’ve no doubt been reading or watching social media posts from people that have played the Beta or the eSports drivers criticising the new handling model. Is it that bad? In a word, yes, it’s bad and will negatively affect my score of F1 24 and it will likely put me off playing the game more until there’s some sort of patch or fix, which is a shame as I’m really keen to get stuck into more of my career mode. 

Other little updates this year include circuit updates – it’s been a long time coming but tracks like Spa and Silverstone now feel more realistic to drive. As you would expect, all livery updates are here including the love Kick Sauber car and in Codemasters own words “The official cars for all 10 teams in the 2024 Championship cars have been meticulously recreated using CAD detailed CAD data. With the addition of Ray-Traced Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination technology in our dedicated EGO engine, the team has improved the lighting, shadows, and reflections during races and cutscenes in F1® 24.” 

F1 World returns after its first appearance last year and from what I can tell not much has changed. Modes like time trial and taking part in single Grand Prix are still hidden in here and if you’re not interested in the career mode grind then F1 World is where you need to be. Like last year you have the opportunity to either race against your friends AI or real human beings whilst upgrading your F1 World car. 

Conclusion

After 8 years the vanilla career mode got its big update, and the new features have the potential to bring lapsed players back. However, despite the positives, a poorly implemented new handling model means that at launch the game is held back from its full potential. We’ll be keeping an eye on it as Codemasters update things, but for now go in with some caution.