After recent Formula 1 games took shifts out of left field and into areas like story modes and supercars, EA and Codemasters have made a concerted effort to make their core player base the main focus of this year's title.
F1 24 has eliminated or downplayed some of the less popular features in a refreshing move to improve on the more traditional aspects of the F1 game. This means that supercars no longer exist and the world of Formula 1 has only received minor modifications.
However, you can basically divide the myriad of changes and improvements made for F1 24 into three distinct groups. Most interesting is the driver's career mode – which is strikingly different than in previous games.
A long overdue overhaul of the career mode
To the delight of many, the main focus of F1 24 has been on overhauling the driver's career situation. This marks the first significant change to this aspect of the game since the introduction of the My Team mode in F1 2020 nearly five years ago.
The Driver profession has been reworked to the point that it is now a deeper career option distinct from My Team, whereas in previous entries the Driver profession was just a slightly scaled down version of My Team.
Before you even get on track, you're greeted with a cutscene of your driver and his agent in Monaco signing your first contract. It's the first taste of a new contract negotiation system, which is improved in more than just its presentation.
As a driver, you start with an overall rating – which can go up or down depending on your results. Teams expect improvement, and part of your contract is a target rating that you must reach by the end of the contract.
In our experience so far, we've found that improving your rating is very easy – and even increasing four overall, which is the game's recommended improvement goal, is very achievable as long as you get reasonable scores for your car's pace.
Technically, you could get into a situation where a team wouldn't want to keep you beyond your contract, but that would require a significant drop in valuation, which is unlikely unless deliberately orchestrated.
While this lack of challenge may be welcome to some who don't want to deal with the constant struggle to maintain their place in Formula 1, it does open up some moments of questionable logic that weaken the illusion of being a Formula 1 driver.
Much has been done by EA and Codemasters regarding the “secret meetings” that have been added to the driver's profession. However, just three races into our Formula 1 career, Aston Martin contacted us to see if we would be interested in moving on from Williams for the following year. This certainly suggests that progressing through Career Mode will be very easy, especially since we haven't even scored a tournament point.
The negotiations were also much longer, as the first meeting after Australia was just to say whether we were interested or not, and the second meeting was after Monaco, where Aston revealed how many upgrades the car had provided, and then asked us if we were still interested in Ongoing conversations.
In fairness, this lengthy negotiation period is, in some ways, quite realistic and certainly a step forward from previous F1 matches. We also have to mention that we've only been through a little over half a season of the career mode so far, so we can't comment on how these conversations will pan out.
But there are some strange omissions from what we saw. Firstly, there seems to be no way to do so Initiate “Secret meetings” with other teams.
Negotiations also proceed at the pace of the team you are talking to. While conversations spanning several weeks or months are perfectly reasonable in real-life Formula 1, the fact that these conversations always last a long time in the game and only seem to end late in the year is not necessarily accurate.
Some sort of risk-reward for trying to close a deal early, and perhaps closing out better options that could emerge later, would greatly improve the system.
We may have just had an unusual experience in our career situation, but we got realistic results at Williams and were almost immediately in talks with Aston Martin – yet none of the late teams wanted to talk to us. Maybe it all comes together at the end of the season, but that would slightly undermine the conclaves themselves if you had more freedom of choice at the end of the year anyway.
The car's divisive handling changes
It is worth noting that many of these changes are limited to the driver's profession. Although my team made changes to its presentation with some of the opening scenes redesigned and placed in different locations, it actually plays out almost identically to what it did in F1 23.
Another major change that EA and Codemasters have pushed hard in their marketing is the physics and car simulation. This includes a new suspension kinematic system as well as updated tires and aerodynamic profiles.
All of these elements have come together to produce a driving model that is easy to get to grips with quickly. Compared to the F1 23, there is more rear grip and picking up slides is easier, so running without the help of traction control will be viable for more players than before.
It's worth noting that the car's handling was widely criticized by big-name Formula 1 gaming influencers last week when a preview version of the game was made available.
The consensus was that the cars looked too unnatural and that the physics had been designed for consoles first and foremost – hurting the experience of players using the wheel and pedals setup in the process.
However, after playing both the preview and launch spec versions of F1 24, there are changes between the two. The understeer on center, which was a big contributor to the unnatural handling feel, isn't present in the final game and the initial shift wasn't as sharp as it was in the preview build.
This won't completely change the belief among more die-hard gamers that physics have been watered down in the interest of making the game more accessible to console users.
But if you're one of them, or you simply appreciate that the game is easier to pick up and play and keep the car pointed in the right direction, you'll feel more at home with F1 24 than other recent EA F1 games.
Other changes
Other smaller tweaks include some much-needed updates to form tracking.
Silverstone, Spa, Jeddah and Lucille have all been revised and updated – with the track markings on the exterior of the Eau Rouge being the most noticeable modification.
If you're racing as one of the real Formula 1 drivers, whether it's in regular Grand Prix mode or Career mode, you'll hear them commentating on their performance using clips of real talk radio. There is also good variety, depending on whether you perform above or below expectations or even if you fail.
There are also some context-specific elements, which are associated either with a particular constituency or with a specific outcome. The 1-2 with Ferrari was met with a radio message from Leclerc specifically stating that we had achieved the 1-2 – so the radio calls were combined very intelligently and accurately.
Furthermore, there is the addition of engine braking as an adjustable car setup option, the Challenge Career, which provides an intense career mode experience and the inclusion of in-race objectives such as either keeping your tires within a certain temperature. Or overtake the car within a certain number of laps. All of these inclusions are welcome.
summary
But the main question is whether F1 24 justifies its selling price on consoles of £69.99 – or even the £89.99 for the Champions Edition.
F1 24 has a number of key differences compared to last year's game, and for career mode fans, there are a number of things to pique your interest.
However, for many, enjoyment of the game lives and dies with the handling model, and this was a source of much frustration among many in the community prior to release. It's been improved since that initial wave of backlash, and Codemasters has promised more tweaks to make it even better.
As it stands today, for those who use a console, want an easily controllable game and who mostly play in career mode, F1 24 should appeal far more than any F1 game since the beginning of EA's involvement in the series.
But it really comes down to how excited you are about changes to the driver's job situation and whether being more forgiving is the direction you want the car handling model to move in.
