F1 24: seven new features we want to see in this year’s licensed racing game

For the first time in the sport’s history, there are absolutely no driver changes between the 2023 and 2024 Formula One seasons. For EA, criticised in some corners for releasing annualised games which consist of little more than a roster update, that poses a slight hitch. Where’s the new stuff going to come from now?

In truth there’s always some aspect of the F1 series being overhauled from one year to the next, but 2024 isn’t the year for subtle tweaks and minor additions. We want to feel like we’re playing a different game, and we’ve got some ideas about how EA and Codemasters can achieve it.

All screenshots are taken from F1 23, released last year

Since Codemasters gained the F1 license and started putting out yearly titles, the proposition was all about putting you behind the eyes of the driver and letting you live the life. That’s why the menus are hidden away as 3D environments like motorhomes and offices. It’s why you field questions from the press, and call the shots in contract negotiations. You’re seeing the whole experience through the driver’s eyes.

But the series could go a lot deeper. We’re not asking for invites to Kimi’s yacht parties or cutscenes from Christian Horner’s famously poorly attended barbecues, we just want some meaningful activities out of the car. A social space like NBA 2K’s 'Neighborhood' where you can do more than admire each other’s sofas (we haven’t forgotten that one, F1 22). An interactive Monte Carlo… Anything that makes us feel like there’s a world outside the race track.

From grand, game-changing ambitions to something rather more esoteric: the custom helmets have been a bit bobbins for years now. If the likes of Lando Norris turned up at Monaco sporting one of the designs EA doles out via the Podium Pass, you’d assume he’d forgotten it was race day and had to nip out and buy a helmet from Lidl on the way to the circuit.

One way to better integrate custom helmets with the real lids would be to add sponsor decals to them according to the team you’re driving for. Frankly, seeing a racing helmet without at least one energy drink logo on it is like watching a dog walk on its hind legs.

Codemasters make driving an F1 car feel good. We can all agree on that, whichever side we fall on the events of Abu Dhabi 2021. But since the 2022 rule changes, the new underfloor-dependent vehicles have felt very front-heavy and twitchy. Based on what the drivers said after the first few races in 2022, that might be an accurate sensation. But accuracy isn’t always fun, as any tax accountant will demonstrate.

It was a bit easier to feel progressive traction loss in the rear in F1 23 compared to its predecessor, and in order to really push the cars this year we want more information about the grip level, millisecond by millisecond.

It’s been a tough nut to crack for this series, hasn’t it? What to do with F1’s rich history. We’ve had some historic cars here and there, and they’ve felt impressively terrifying to drive. But there’s never been enough of them to form a satisfying experience. Instead, they’ve felt like expensive test drives with no particular objective.

It’s really hard to secure the licenses for historic F1 content, but humour us: imagine playing through Lewis Hamilton’s entire career. From the aero-heavy 2007 spec McLaren and its shrieking 2.4-litre V8 engine, through the stepped-nose era and into the turbo hybrid Mercedes dynasty. Every season a full grid of authentic competitors, and long-lost tracks like Sepang, Korea and the Valencia street circuit. Will it feature in 2024? It’s an even more remote possibility than Christian Horner going a whole interview without starting a sentence with “Look…” But we can dream.

Braking Point mode is a wonderful intersection between scenario-based driving challenges and scenery-chewing dramatic spectacle. Featuring in F1 21 and F1 23, it’s plotted the improbably eventful career of young Aiden Jackson, his eyebrow-waggling team-mate Devon Butler, and F2 hotshot Callie Meyer.

On the surface it looked like EA doing its best Drive to Survive impression, but Braking Point is more theatrical, and frankly sillier, than Netflix’s deadpan behind-the-scenes doc. Logic would suggest that having skipped F1 22 it will also take a breather in this year’s game, but there’s so much more to do with the mode. More impactful player decisions, more customisable appearance options, more consequences to achieving or failing certain race results… and we don’t want to wait a year to see where it’s headed.

We’ll freely admit it - we’ve been utterly spoiled by the way F1 Manager uses samples of real race radio exchanges between drivers and their race engineers to convey the goings-on in the midst of a race.

Codemasters hasn’t been radio silent over the years, and we’ll never forget the legendary Jeff reminding us not to attempt any heroics into turn 1 at Monaco like clockwork, but we haven’t heard anything from other teams and drivers while we were driving before.

Imagine this: rather than just seeing a stricken car at the side of the track and inferring that Yuki Tsunoda has retired, you actually hear a race radio clip of Yuki telling his engineer he’s OK, and apologising for crashing out. Same goes for other drivers pitting in, switching strategies, or even reacting to incidents with you. All the time, remember, you have to leave the space.

As you’re reading this, AI is generating millions of images according to millions of extremely specific (not to mention worrying) prompts. It’s turning toilet selfies into LinkedIn business portraits. It’s generating intricate architectural designs, fantastical scenes, eerily human faces who’ve never existed in reality.

It self-drives cars. It answers our queries like an eternally patient sentient Google. It will, of course, one day rise up and destroy us.

But until then, are you seriously telling us that this revolutionary tech can’t be harnessed to decide whether cooldude69 crashed into us in F1 23 or vice versa?