EA Sports is set to release the new trailer for F1 23 today. With plenty league racing seasons beginning to draw to a close, the time has come for many to once again speculate on F1 franchise’s next entry.
The game had initial promise and was set up well to benefit from support via EA’s much larger backing this time. We had a wonky handling model, combined with features many would consider novel but lacking in meaningful additions to gameplay, such as F1 Life and the Supercars you could drive in bitesized challenges.
We close a chapter on an entry to forget, here’s where we stand and what we do know ahead of F1 23’s official reveal.
Respecting Traditions in Unorthodox Ways
EA gave us the first ‘proper’ tease of F1 23 and what we can expect with a reveal of Konnersport Racing Team. It’s a brand new fictional entry to the F1 grid for the new title, and confirmation that we will see a continuation of the Braking Point storyline started in F1 2021.
The actual reveal video in question, to it’s credit, was very authentic to a real F1 team’s car launch. It had many celebrity faces that felt like they didn’t want to be there beyond reading their lines, and used a base-specification F1 car with a (admittedly very striking) livery rather than a unique design.
It can never match the highs of a real car launch given it’s fictional nature and lack of depth in development (they didn’t have to spend the years ACTUALLY developing an F1 car and hiring personnel), but while I will never complain about having more Durk, Naomi or Matt on my screen it fell short for me, as there was none of the actual game shown besides a driver model for fictional character Devon Butler.
Call me a cynic if you wish, but I hope just as much time, effort and money is being spent on the game and polishing up it’s flaws as there has been on this marketing video. Time and gameplay will tell.
Does the F1 game need a new engine?
Astute users were quick to notice upon the game’s initial tease back in March that the game was still running on the EGO Engine, Codemasters’ in-house engine that has been used for F1 games since they took the mantle of yearly releases in 2009.
Credit: F1 / @EASPORTSF1
While the current iteration, EGO 4.0, has been in use since only 2015, that is still 8 years on the same engine iteration and 15, if we count Colin McRae’s DiRT in 2008, on the same foundations that by now have definitely started to show their cracks.
With bugs still fundamentally plaguing leagues to this day, many were hoping that EA’s acquisition of Codemasters would see them move the franchise to the Frostbite engine for later entries, another in-house engine this time from EA but one praised for it’s visual fidelity and underpinning other titles under their umbrella such as FIFA, the Dead Space remake and Need For Speed.
While there has been no definitive answer on the topic (some speculate development is split between the old and current generation consoles with different iterations of the EGO Engine also), it is confirmed by trademark filings at least that there’s not going to be any major overhaul under the hood this time.
Another piece of evidence to the theory that the game remains on the same engine is the 2023 Alfa Romeo car being present within and added to F1 22. To use a new engine would require a heap of changes in pipeline, meaning any modelling work would be wasted on current platforms.
What does a F1 game need to succeed?
Right now, there are many splitting paths of opinion with where the game should go. Does it go deeper into simulation, or add more to the ‘casual’ gameplay styles we saw with the introduction of Supercars?
Regardless, there are some things that the community – and esports leagues in particular can agree on:
Fix The Bugs – Where one bug is squashed, another two rise in it’s place. Part of the reason why fans were interested in a new engine, F1 22 in particular was laden with bugs big and small, some only cosmetic but others drastically harming the league racing scene. If we are to see the same game engine, let’s hope Codies took the time to address the key bugs and put the QA time in.
Improved Spectator Options – The game’s existing framework for spectators is solid, but in a world of hardcore sims and third party tools that can extract much more information from the game, the vanilla Spectator Mode is due an upgrade. Key improvements could be choice of multiple cameras beyond Broadcast and Onboard (A Helicopter / Drone cam would do brilliantly here), having static cameras for select corners, additional information and HUD changes would see the league racing experience in particular soar in production overnight. With the esports focus the franchise has taken in recent years (and the trust it needs to rebuild following multiple scandals around cheating), this feels like a no brainer.
Revised Handling Model – Last, but certainly not least is the driving itself, which is also due an upgrade. F1 22’s key driving characteristics consist of being very skittish on throttle, quick to lose the rear coming out of corners and unsaveable should your car experience anything resembling a slide. It only takes a side-by-side of a drive on a circuit by a real-life Red Bull compared to it’s virtual equivalent to see the issues and need for a more confidence-inspiring take on handling. F1 cars are formidable machines, but ones to be respected and worked with, not feared.
F1 23 is set to be fully revealed today (May 3rd), and as we await more news from the franchise regarding it’s next steps and more importantly, a gameplay reveal to seal and confirm our hopes – or fears.
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