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Review

May 28, 2024

F1 24 Review

Lights Off
4 Awesome
Retails for: $69.99
We Recommend: $69.99
  • Developer: Codemasters
  • Publisher: Electronic Arts
  • Genre: Racing, Sports
  • Released: May 31, 2024
  • Platform: Windows, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4
  • Reviewed: Windows

F1 24 is yet another simulated triumph from Codemasters. Formula One is not yet halfway through its current season, and this game couldn’t come at a better time. Formula One is also at its height of popularity as well. Having a game that compliments things so well cannot be understated. F1 24 features a revamped career, an expanded F1 World mode, and lots of longevity built-in. Codemasters have made strides in improving a lot of things that may not be immediately apparent at first sight, but you’re in for a ride with F1 24.

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I may be the odd person out here, but I’m a bit dismayed there’s no “Braking Point” story mode for this year. It appears to be on a two-year cycle, but I was looking forward to continuing seeing what was next for those characters, and what new twists get introduced. That said, in its stead are the extremely dense Career and F1 World modes. They have more depth and nuance than their previous iterations, and you’re bound to be a fan of one or both of them.

Career mode sees many updates and reworks as now you can play as current drivers from the Formula One grid and take them to other teams to see how they’d fare. Also new is the Challenge Career mode, a completely separate save that tasks you with completing certain challenges on a rotating timer. Some of them can be done infinitely, with others having a time-limit attached to them. You otherwise can play the same traditional career mode as just a driver of your own making, or as a team owner part of MyTeam to design everything from scratch. Lastly, there’s the long-appreciated two-player mode to play with or against a friend across a season of F1.

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I’m gonna talk a lot about F1 World, a mode I was lukewarm on last year but am all-in on today. F1 World centralizes the single-player modes of quick races and time trials here, with a bunch of curated races to take part while still feeling progression to that of the career mode. This mode also contributes to progressing in the Podium Pass over prior years. F1 World also is a carpg of a mode, with slotting in new parts and people to improve your car’s score. You can even craft new and better parts utilizing resources from races or dismantling lesser parts. When in race, you’ll recognize names as the game will pull from your platform’s friends list to put in AI racers on the grid to battle against.

F1 World is full of nooks and crannies. There’s a compendium that you eventually get access to where stickers earned can be applied and gives you small buffs to various components of your car. I will say that the upgrade system here is less fiddly than the career mode. Then there’s the Fanzone, a place that lets you choose your favorite team and favorite driver. Smartly, they made it so you can support a team and driver, independent of each other. There’s so much time you can spend in here taking part of various races thrown your way. I was always excited to jump into a championship or series that would boost my car’s gear score.

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Max Verstappen is an avid gamer of simulation racing, and helped to steer the physics updates to F1 24. The new dynamic handling affects so many more components that aren’t something you see right away. Tires flex, suspension bends and forms to the ground below, and aerodynamics are correctly simulated. The way your car flexes looks far more organic than it has, and there’s gameplay effects that you feel while racing. From here you can tune more intimately like adjusting tire pressure so that you are either higher or lower to the ground as a result of it. It’s really impressive all-around.

I really like the new HUD design, with triangle geometric tessellation in its design is real sleek. It centralizes all the information about RPM, gear, speed, and others to where your eyes naturally gravitate towards. There’s also many circuit improvements, but Silverstone and Spa have been completely remade, which are just night and day different and ultimately better. Also new this year is the inclusion of crossplay, which you can opt out of if you so choose, but being able to play with all players ensures that you’ll always find someone in multiplayer.

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Unlike EA SPORTS WRC, VR available from the start to be played in F1 24. The game once again features Ray Tracing, DLSS, and Frame Generation. With full ray tracing and frame generation, I was getting well over 130fps. It’s also worth noting that there are improved models all around, so everyone from the drivers you create to the real-life drivers, look much better than prior years. And of course there’s standard support for wheel manufacturers like Thrustmaster and Fanatec for you to use.

My PC Specs:

– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)

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It’s true that F1 World and Career modes offer more than enough to satisfy most, the lack of historic races or cars and the story mode is sorely missing. The fact that this year is the 30th Anniversary since Ayrton Senna’s death, I thought there might be something in the game to celebrate his career. That said, F1 24 is a bit of a reset by bolstering existing modes that go above and beyond what they’ve done before, and are sure to be built-on for years to come. F1 24 is a fantastic companion to the current season while also being a fantastic game all on its own.

A  Steam code for the Champions Edition was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes