F1 23 looks like one of those games that will breathe my entire summer, because of all the deep and immersive modes it offers to racing fans who want to live the glamorous and exciting life of the most elite motorsport, on top of the singular challenge to push its cars to the limit to drive.
Codemasters and Electronic Arts are making big strides with the second (some say third) chapter of the F1 series’ story mode – Braking Point – but a chat with creative director Lee Mather reveals that there will be so much more available in F1 23 to serve the emerging stories that sports video gamers crave.
Once they’re done with the story of rivals Devon Butler and Aiden Jackson – now teammates who previously battled it out on several mid-pack teams in F1 2021 — fans will have the all-new open-ended realm of F1 World, which combines traditional single-player progression with multiplayer events in a way inspired by modes like NBA 2K’s MyCareer, and even season-based loot-shooters like Lot 2Mather said.
“The idea was for people to play My Team,” said Mather, the in-depth, multi-season car-and-career management mode. “They’ll play their careers as drivers, they’ll get to a sort of natural endpoint where you become world champions, and maybe you don’t want to play after that.
“But there’s so much great content in the game,” argued Mather, “we wanted to find a way to give players a reason to engage with that for the full 12 months of a Formula 1 season. And we wanted ways find ways to link those moments to what happened in the [real-life] season more effectively.”
F1 World, then it will be a way to progress through a series of challenges (with unlockable rewards) that are season based and themed on current events, which can be single player or multiplayer challenges. Previous versions of the F1 series were very isolated in terms of the multiplayer experience; Classified racing is always on, with both the leaderboard and private race competitions, or the open pursuit of the fastest laps in Time Trials mode.
F1 World will try to bring all of that together with the aim of improving the player’s vehicle. This is an important distinction, as the F1 series multiplayer has essentially involved a spec car, i.e. one whose features and performance are standard across all competitors. Formula 1 fans know this isn’t how it works in real life; F1 World gives them the chance to race in cars they are developing and upgrading, different from their competitors but still in a fair fight.
“As you play the mode, you earn resources that allow you to upgrade the car, the F1 World car,” explains Mather. So it’s not just the cosmetics that players unlock with the Podium Pass which has been in the game for three years now. “And with the F1 World car you have a ‘technical level’ that opens up your possibilities to compete in more challenging events.”
In short, it will break F1 World levels of competition so that players are once again building out their cars, but are still fairly matched. “It opens up the opportunity for players of different skill levels to compete by building up their car,” said Mather — unlike the old model, where the handling, aerodynamics, powertrain and other features of a multiplayer car are standard were in all competitors.
Given these balance issues, F1 World is not something that could come together in a year; Mather said the mode has been in various stages of development since then F1 2021 shipped two years ago. F1 22‘s introduction of supercars and a limited, lifestyle-style hub world were a toe dip into the larger pool that F1 World aspires to be.
Similarly, the second chapter of Braking Point is an iterative phase, building on previous works in F1 2019 And F1 2021. It still uses characters developed in the earlier career modes, most notably Devon Butler, the mocking heel who is somehow just understandable and relatable enough to remain the show’s biggest and most compelling star.
Fan reaction to Butler’s character has long impressed Mather, and the Codemasters writers leaned hard on him with Braking Point 2, finding Butler to be the perfect fulcrum for the soap-opera storylines that the Making Formula 1 so delightful in real life. Here he’s the top driver for a fictional team called Konnersport – but it’s clear he’s in that seat because he brings the money (Butler’s management organization is a livery sponsor on the vehicle). Those drivers are deeply outraged by the ongoing story of real Formula 1 racing.
“You look at the exposure we’re getting through [the Netflix documentary] Drive to surviveand the things that happen do you think, Wow, I never realized there was such a soap opera behind the scenes,” Mather said. “There are so many things we can feed on. The sport really fuels that narrative that we’re trying to build, filling it with moments where people go, Well, that’s very familiar.”
But Braking Point 2 will push the edges of the ongoing F1 story, not only in the delightful what if two blood enemies race for the same team, but also in introducing Callie Mayer, a fictional Formula 2 driver tearing up that division. and threatening the jobs of Butler and his teammate. Mayer’s experience in Braking Point 2 draws on Jamie Chadwick, the real life Grand Prix driver who was the inaugural Series W champion in 2019 and is currently a test driver for the Williams F1 team.
“We were already talking to Jamie about a number of things; we had also more or less set out in our minds that this was the story option,” said Mather, referring to the introduction of a female driver into F1 (who would be the first to start a Formula 1 race since Lella Lombardi in 1976). “And then it was just a natural interaction to have; it was a case of, ‘Look, we were already talking about some things. Would you be interested in advising or contributing to this story?’”
The result, says Mather, is the kind of ravishing what-if story that F1 fans are blue-sky fans on forums and social media all the time: what if this man went to this team? What if that F2 driver made a run? Would this team take so-and-so’s money and give a real SOB the first seat? How do team orders work in that situation? Mather said the Codemasters staff, in charge of other parts of the game, had great meetings with the writers hired to write Braking Point 2 and build that mode.
“It still comes back to Devon for me,” Mather said with a broad smile. “He still makes me laugh, and I think that’s really pretty impressive, considering this is a racing game about pressure and what’s happening in the world of Formula 1. It’s the writing, that lighthearted, off-the-cuff remarks and enticements .. ‘Chin up!’ and simple things like that The things he says are so damning, you get off like, That really hurtsbut the way he says it, it’s so innocent.”
F1 23 launches on June 16 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.