More than any previous entry, EA Sports are confident this year’s official F1 game is going to be the most immersive and thoroughly authentic Formula 1 experience yet. F1 25’s list of updates is extensive; most advertised is the amended My Team, with more control to build your dynasty off the track than has been possible before. A wealth of audio and visual enhancement is coming, notably in the introduction of laser-scanned tracks. Revisions to car handling and AI suggest EA has been listening to veteran F1 players’ bugbears. Chuck in new collaborative multiplayer modes, reverse tracks, novel customization options – including a brand-new Decal Editor – and the return of emotionally charged story mode Braking Point and, yeah, F1 25 has potential to be the series’ best.
Every year, a common complaint centers on F1’s car physics. F1 24 magnified these grievances exponentially, with accusations the game had lost its challenge, in part due to non-existent understeer and too-easily correctable oversteer. Rightly or wrongly, F1 24’s legacy is cemented in its perceived failings to provide authentic racing experiences.
“F1 25’s car handling suggests newfound authenticity, but is it perfect? No, it isn’t. Overall, it’s still largely forgiving.”
So, F1 25 and its car handling revisions, devised in tandem with pro F1 sim racers, focuses on refining four key areas: tyres, power units, aero performance, and controller-slash-wheel feedback. What you’ll want to know is this: does F1 25 feel good to drive? I’m here to tell you yes, overall, I believe it does. Although, a quick caveat before we go further: I’m playing with a controller. Like most gamers, cost, practicality, and accessibility inform the apparatus I game with. Steering wheels, of course, enhance immersion, with F1 25 reportedly fine-tuning force feedback to provide greater sense the car is fighting to straighten its wheels through corners, but I can’t confirm how this feels.
What I can confirm is there is tangible sensation through the PS5’s DualSense when I break too hard, when I miss my apexes, when I step on the gas too greedily out of cornering. It feels, in a way, that this should be as good as it gets through a controller, running the car on the ragged edge, deftly depressing the brakes, and feathering the throttle. This feedback informs car behaviour well and is vital for learning how to eradicate locking up under-braking or suffering wheelspin out of corners.
F1 25’s car handling suggests newfound authenticity, but is it perfect? No, it isn’t. Overall, it’s still largely forgiving. I should say at this point that I turned all driving assists off except traction control which was set to medium (the other options being full assistance or off altogether, the latter of which – sorry purists – I’m not quite skilled enough for). Medium traction control gave me the much-needed, aforesaid sense of ragged edge. I could conceivably spin out should I stomp on the accelerator pedal too early as, what happened frequently, the back end would step out. However, rarely did this amount to anything more than a missed heartbeat. The snap was easy to control. This may be symptomatic of medium traction control, but the point is there was feeling there that the car should have nosedived into the Armco, but it never did. Oversteer, for the most part, is a non-event. An inconvenience at most. Likewise, should you dip a tyre beyond track limits, into gravel or scraping on grass then the penalty is largely non-existent. Time lost is minimal.
The question I ask myself though is this: is more accessible driving a bad thing? After all, more fans are flocking to the sport thanks to Netflix’s Drive to Survive, and with this summer’s F1 movie the presumption is more fans are incoming. Expert racers might be agitated by diluted physics, of course, but balancing authentic car feel with accessibility for the laymen can’t be easy to achieve and yet Codemasters have got there with F1 25. Whilst, like I said, it’s not perfect, distinctions between tyre compounds, degradation, and fuel loads are noticeably felt through the controller.
Another example of accessibility – and something EA haven’t talked about in the runup to F1 25’s release – is car setup. Default setups, favouring straight line speed or cornering, or a balance of the two, are quite effective this year. It feels as though you can get 90% of the way to extracting the most performance out of any car by choosing one of the game’s pre-determined setups. And if the car is still a tad understeer-y at low speed, a simple tweak of front wing angle provides noticeable bite. This is a win in my book as, yes, F1 games historically are simulations but not everyone newly interested in the sport is going harbour in-depth setup knowledge. Something that levels the playing field shouldn’t be smirked at. Seasoned pros who understand the nuances of car setup can still extract more through custom setups, so there’s no reason to be upset.
Moving on to another one of F1’s consistent problems: computer-controlled driver AI. This year, EA say they have re-tuned AI to reflect the thrill and excitement of driving against human opponents. Do they succeed? Well, I’m afraid to say this one’s a no. Complaints from previous years will rear their head again. For instance, AI drivers are extremely cautious when under-braking, to the point where it’s incredibly easy to rear-end their gearbox a hundred metres before either of us hit the apex, whilst their much-promoted defensive nouse amounts to nothing more than sliding the car to the middle of the track. Of course, it doesn’t help that DRS is overpowered, perhaps in response to the dreaded DRS trains that consistently formed in F1 24. DRS trains don’t appear to be as much of an issue in F1 25 but that’s because flipping open your rear-wing letterbox sees you breeze past your opponent with ease, whether they’ve got their DRS open or not.
“Impressive is the effect decisions have on your team’s psyche, especially ones that’ll influence a driver’s perceived position within the team. “
A lot of work goes into creating artificial intelligence, there’s no denying that. But the problem with F1 games is that opposition drivers seem incapable of unpredictability. There’s definite improvement over last year; computer-controlled drivers now deploy ERS tactically, but 25’s racing demands volatility to be as authentic as Codemasters purport it to be. AI should make mistakes: more lockups, noticeably succumbing to pressure, or visible caution trailing in dirty air. There is room for improvement here, but the problem I suspect is in how complex it is to program these behaviours. Hopefully we’ll get there; AI in F1 25 takes a step in the right direction but, I feel, it isn’t as large a leap as EA’s marketing material claims.
F1 25 focuses too much on off-track innovations as opposed to more-needed on-track improvement. Case in point: the vast overhaul of My Team. Refining the team owner role is My Team 2.0, with day-to-day running of multiple departments, managing company-wide morale, including both drivers, researching and developing (which have been split into separate processes for the first time), and strategising the financial impact of every decision. Then, on race weekends, you can get inside the cockpit and race as one of your drivers. There’s a lot going on.
Impressive is the effect decisions have on your team’s psyche, especially ones that’ll influence a driver’s perceived position within the team. Case in point, your R&D budget might only stretch to one new car part; sticking it onto your number one driver’s car will disgruntle the other. A shallower version of F1 Manager’s Mentality System this may be but following that series’ demise there’s space for complex F1 management in F1 25. My Team 2.0, however, only skims the surface of what F1 Manager was capable of. Worse, it’s unsure of what it wants to be, and its engagement suffers as a result. If My Team goes further down the team owner route, navigating the sport’s politics or fostering academy talent through F2 and F3, or – a glaring miss – undertaking a hefty period of Winter testing to compliment the newly split research and development departments then this will enrichen the experience.
You will spend a lot of time away from the track in My Team 2.0, so thankfully you can still undertake a season without any ownership fluff via career campaigns, and these are largely the same modes that have come before, including the returning chance to mix F1’s current field with driver icons, F2 drivers, Braking Point’s Konnersport contingent, and characters from the F1 movie. So, the dream of chasing an 8th world title for Michael Schumacher or getting Franco Colapinto into an Alpine before the devs do is still on. And when you are behind the wheel there are five new laser-scanned tracks to admire.
F1 25’s LIDAR circuits have been rebuilt from the ground up, encompassing the first five of last year’s calendar – Bahrain, Melbourne, Imola, Suzuka, and Miami – with the look and feel of each fantastically refreshed. The real-life tracks were scanned during F1 race weekends, ensuring barriers, advertisements, grandstands, lights, trees, foliage, fan areas, all are as true to life as possible. LIDAR’s billions of data points translate to bar-raising tarmac replication too, with more profound bumps, elevation changes, off-camber corners, and curb heights woven into controller feedback beyond non-LIDAR tracks. When EA talk about F1 25 exhibiting newfound authenticity, look no further than LIDAR tracks. I’m a big fan and can’t wait for the rest of the calendar to be rebuilt.
“The return of Braking Point with its third campaign provides an ample jumping in point for anyone eager to get started with impactful racing.”
The reverse tracks, however, I’m on the fence. There’s only three – Silverstone, Austria’s Red Bull Ring, and Zandevoort – and whilst the execution is thoroughly well done with floor decals, lights, pit crew formations, marshal positioning, safety barrier tweaks, adjusted racing lines, recalibrated AI, and anything else you can think of proving this isn’t just a case of flipping cars 180°, it does feel a tad gimmicky. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a neat way to introduce – for all intents and purposes – new tracks to the calendar but maybe I’m too much of a purist. It feels strange driving iconic circuits the ‘wrong’ way. Also, you might argue Codemasters’ time and effort would be better spent introducing historical circuits, something F1’s community has been relentlessly requesting.
An overdue feature incoming is the new Decal Editor, enhancing custom liveries for your cars in F1 World and My Team. The process is cool; starting with a base livery, decals customizable via scale, angle, and position provide personality and – that word again – an authentic look to your design. Whilst I’m usually unperturbed by cosmetics, I feel eager to unlock more customization options as I continue racing through the game’s various modes. However, it would have been nice to see the decal editor extend to your driver’s overalls as whilst a car loaded with advertisements looks the part, a driver in blank racewear is jarring.
The return of Braking Point with its third campaign provides an ample jumping in point for anyone eager to get started with impactful racing. Without spoilers, Braking Point 3’s emotional story marries well with off-track politics prevalent in the sport providing an engaging diversion away from blockbuster racing. My only gripe really is the suspension of disbelief in some of the mid-race objectives; sprinting from 7th to 1st in the final 6 laps of a race would be too much to ask even of Max Verstappen and his near-invincible 2023 Red Bull.
Finally, F1 25 finds space for F1 The Movie with a campaign that’d presumably be similar in delivery to Braking Point 3. An introductory scenario is raceable for all F1 25 owners, but only those with the more expensive Iconic Edition will be able to take on key challenges replicated from the film when they drop in post-launch updates starting 30th June.
“Finally, F1 25 finds space for F1 The Movie with a campaign that’d presumably be similar in delivery to Braking Point 3.”
Innovations like the Decal Editor demonstrate F1 25 is steering the series in the right direction. Arguably, however, we aren’t experiencing their full potential. LIDAR tracks aside, as whilst it’d be very welcome for every circuit to be remade and present, they’ll take time, My Team’s management focus, car handling’s enhancements, AI’s revisions, even the reverse circuits, there’s a sense that F1 25 is trying out a host of new or refined ideas without fully committing to them.
I can’t comment on F1 25’s sure-to-be welcome focus on respectful, multi-player racing though as the online lobbies are barren at the time of writing, but the new Invitationals mode could be an excellent way to play online without worrying some rogue gamer will T-bone you into a gravel trap. Instead, Invitationals encourage racers to collaborate in achieving a shared goal in exchange for ample rewards. Furthermore, revamped Driver of the Day systems, plus awards for cleanest driving, most overtakes, and more, should encourage teamwork and respectful racing further.
This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.
