When I start playing the latest edition of Codemasters’ F1 series, it usually takes a couple of hours before I actually hit the track in one of the major game modes. I’m hesitant about the livery for my multiplayer and career mode cars; I mess with repositioning things in the HUD and setting my preferences; I tune the car to each of the game’s 23 tracks, lap by lap in Time Trial, then set the AI difficulty in Grand Prix.
But not this year. Oh, sure, I was still fussing about my car’s aesthetics. But ever since I took it in F1 23‘s new F1 World just to try the new mode’s onboarding series of events, I’ve played nothing else – no team career, no single driver career – and I’ve finished Braking Point 2’s story after over a week with it game. Somehow Codemasters has managed to develop another vortex that will eat up another few hundred hours of my time.
F1 World is basically the hub where you’ll find the old Time Trials, Grand Prix and online multiplayer modes, plus a new set of challenges. But there’s a huge change: the car you used in multiplayer modes in years past is now your “F1 World Car”, and it’s something that can be improved. With each race, you improve performance with the parts and shop staff you earn each time you race, regardless of mode.
The single player F1 World races that unlock these parts and staff are very simple – pick up and play brilliantly. You don’t have to worry about vehicle configuration; in many of them you are stuck with one of the standard configurations (e.g. top speed, more downforce or balanced). There’s no time wasted – just jump in and you’re racing, usually in five-lap events. A series concludes with a Grand Prix comprising at least one pit stop and approximately 15 laps.
However, the car upgrades and unlocks really fuel the one more gameplay loop that has me gobble up F1 World events like chips. You bring back a new part or team member from just about any event, and at least consider whether to add them to your lineup – or “dismantle” them for resources, a hell of a thing to do to that poor team first name. And if you don’t earn these resources from the races themselves, chances are you’ve leveled up in the Podium Pass (F1 23‘s season-based battle pass) and drew something from that.
Players aren’t just rotating parts and personnel in and out, either. There are choices within the choices. For example, I earned an engine that had a higher acceleration score than the one in my car, but it gave a negligible engine power bonus, while the one I used was +15 for engine power. My answer? Throw away the power source I just unlocked and upgrade the one I was using, using the resources I built up from previous races and parts.
Image: Codemasters/Electronic Arts via Polygon
In the same vein, team personnel should be assigned to a contract that runs for a certain number of events. Higher quality contracts have a longer duration (and provide bigger bonuses). So just because I brought a legendary class team boss from Belgium doesn’t automatically mean I’m going to rotate him as the Epic class, and lower rated guy I have, is only three races in a 15. – match contract.
The point of all this is that the player is constantly progressing and managing his car and garage. They also march through the Podium Pass and also level up in their Super License class, which is used for online multiplayer matchmaking (and also gates for some multiplayer events). Players can choose to race in a single player event with a lower license level, just farm it for lower level rewards, or with the highest grade they’ve earned for a bigger challenge.
If I have one complaint about F1 World, it’s that it’s very easy to beat some of the single player events completely. Ostensibly, these events are determined by the technical level of your car, which is the overall score of the components and personnel you have acquired. But it wasn’t until the beginning of the F1 World that I found myself really being challenged by the rest of the field; since then I’ve won several races against AI fields by 10 seconds so that the whole thing seems to be a series of practice laps.
My car’s technical level is currently 276, and I have three events on my schedule where the required technical level is below 200, which means I blow those away when I get to it. It would be nice if they could somehow be scaled up to suit my abilities, but I’ll probably finish them anyway.
Image: Codemasters/Electronic Arts via Polygon
Multiplayer, and its ranked version, is an entirely different challenge, just one I haven’t seen much of in the pre-release review and early access periods. That F1 23 has formally launched on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X – with cross-platform multiplayer – I expect this to be the bulk of the real challenge in F1 World.
Finally, probably the biggest benefit of the F1 World system of unlocking and constant progression is that the game has become much more user-friendly with the premium cosmetics. While there is a VIP series of unlocks in the Podium Pass, players can no longer pay to go to the end of it and get all the loot, just to get that one helmet or livery they really want. FOMO’s daily and weekly offerings of suits, gloves and the like are now only discounted sale stock items that are always available in the F1 Store. So since these items are always available, players can go in and choose a la carte the design they want, rather than being pressured to scavenge a bunch of cosmetics they may never use.
Image: Codemasters/Electronic Arts via Polygon
Most of all, I’m not only impressed with how fun and infinitely playable F1 World is, I’m also impressed that the developers of a very mature sports series have come up with a new way to take down hardcore career mode drivers like me. of that cartridge – and without putting their hands in my pockets. I don’t know when I’ll get to the new narrative mode, Braking Point 2, or the multi-season career of My Team, which has taken so many hours from me over the past six years; I’m having too much fun in F1 World. But knowing those two deep modes are still there means I’ll probably play F1 23 from now until F1 24 arrives.