Formula Legends’ ‘F1 across the eras’ is so good, you wonder why nobody did it already

Formula One’s best asset isn’t the Netflix show or the upcoming movie. It isn’t even the audio library of Kimi Raikkonen’s best team radio lines, which will surely sustain the next century of meme creation. It’s the heritage. The 75 years of history, iconic machinery, immortal heroes and feats of unfathomable bravery. Odd, then, that indie simcade racer Formula Legends is something of an outlier for encapsulating the sport’s various historical eras in one experience.

When we first saw the reveal trailer and digested the concept – an accessible, cartoonised take on circuit racing featuring unlicensed takes on F1 cars from the 1960s to present – we got quite excited. Having taken a deeper look at the game, which now has a playable demo live on Steam from 6 June, that excitement is now veritably bubbling.

The first thing that stands out about the racing is the quality of AI opponents. They jostle with each other in braking zones and take varying lines through turns, which really shouldn’t be a rarity in the modern genre but somehow is.

3D Clouds founder Francesco Bruschi explains: “We don’t have a learning AI. It’s very simple, but very tuned for the feeling that the player’s in a real race. What you’ve seen is our first pass at that, we’re not at the finish yet. I want a clean race with maybe some [AI] mistakes and different strategies. My first priority is to bring my racing experience to our development.”

And that might be the secret sauce that makes Formula Legends stand out: this isn’t a studio having a stab at what the community might want from a game like this. It’s members of that community making the game they want to play.

This might be a friendly and approachable looking title, but it’s the hidden depths like tyre wear and pit strategies that elevate it, and they’ve found their way into this game because Bruschi has been modding racing games since the days of the venerable Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix 2 in 1996. He’s also a former racer who’s competed against Sebastian Vettel in Formula Renault, among other accolades.

Structurally, it works like you’d imagine. Career mode takes you from the cigar-shaped deathtraps of the 1960s right through to modern energy-harvesting machinery, all in unlicensed but very recognisable form. There are over 100 different vehicles to span those seasons, and their liveries are instantly recognisable nods to their real-life counterparts. Likewise the drivers, whose names have had their letters jumbled in early ‘90s console racer style, but remain easy to decode.

Each era of vehicle has its own handling behaviour and is built around a different physics model. The older cars will step out around corners and prompt your brain to provide a quick supercut of your life before the tyres find traction again, while the modern ground effect cars will reflect the greater downforce and turn-in speed.

You really notice the sound differences between historical eras, too. The turbos sound like turbos, with that same musical roar that soundtracked many a Prost-Senna tussle. Details like that all contributed to Formula Legends’ warm reception when it was revealed, and that reception confirmed what Bruschi’s team suspected: there’s a gap in the genre for this exact experience.

“About a year ago we were thinking about Art of Rally,” says producer Francesco Mantovani, “which is our main reference at this point.

“It has received a big response from the market, and we wondered why nobody made this kind of game about the F1 world. We started working on it, we had some doubts along the way, but when we first saw the first prototype we realised there was something huge there.”

That positive reception at reveal also spurred 3DClouds on, and fuelled the team’s motivation to create a playable demo before launch.

“When we shared the trailer, says Bruschi, “I knew that we had something good in our hands. We caused all sorts of praise and discussion, everybody was enjoying this game. We’ll share something new in the next month, and also the demo.”

Of course the hands-on experience will make or break Formula Legends, but with the team’s experience on and off the track, it stands a better chance than most.