F1 25 Review – Start Your Engines!
F1 has become one of the fastest-growing sports in the country in recent years behind the rise of superstars such as Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. This may even grow more with the upcoming movie based around the sport titled F1. There have always been F1 games around for decades now, with with now EA subsidiary Codemasters being the developer since 2009. The future is a bit murky for the series right now, as F1 has yet to renew its partnership with EA, which ends this year. However, Codemasters and EA Sports have delivered yet another winning entry in the meantime with F1 25.
Take a Lap
The F1 series in its current form under EA has now been around for the last five years and has always had pretty solid controls and handling until last year’s game where the fanbase expressed some concerns with the handling. Thankfully, the development team managed to course correct and get back on track with F1 25. While it’s never going to be appease everyone out there, whether players prefer a too realistic or most accessible option, the handling in this year’s game felt the best it has in awhile. You can tell that there was a lot of work done to make tires feel much better here as well, which was a major complaint before.
On the other hand, the series has never been lacking in visuals and this year is no different thanks to continued improvements to the realism. This is due to not only the game’s excellent visuals overall, but the Light Detection and Ranging scanning system, known as LIDAR. The development team specifically digitally scanned Bahrain, Miami, Melbourne, Suzuka and Imola tracks and used all of the technologies at their disposal to make them seem as true to life as possible. This even extends to the asphalt details and elevation changes in the map, creating the most authentic experience to date.
F1 25 has a few game modes to select from, including a couple of different story-based modes. The first of these is Braking Point 3, the third interation of this ongoing series. Rather than releasing yearly, Braking Point entries have been broken up into every couple years, with Braking Point and Braking Point 2 coming in F1 21 and F1 23 respectively.
Braking Point starts off with a recap of what happens prior in Braking Point, including following Braking Point protagonist Aiden Jackson’s journey, as well as how one-time rival turned teammate Devon Butler got injured and was replaced with his sister Callie Mayer. This leads into Braking Point 3, where we rotate playing between Aiden and Callie as Konnersport is run by Devon and Callie’s father Davidoff Butler.
Story modes in EA Sports games are something I really did enjoy on a surface level when we saw it in other games like Madden and FIFA, with F1 being one of the best due to the cross-game story continuing. While it has been weird to not be in every entry, it does allow for some turmoil to occur between entries to set up the new story better. I really appreciate that the developers actually use cinematics to tell the story here with really realistic looking character models and solid voice acting to tell the story. They do also take great use of phone calls to push the story forward between chapters as well, but it’s handled well here to where you don’t feel like it’s taking away from the game.
Performance and Reputation play a big part in Braking Point, as they both fluctuate depending on your actions on the track and off. Raising your level in both will allow you to have more dialogue options during interviews and department events. You’ll even see the additional choices that would be unlocked during conversations that tell you the required level to unlock them or what level you needed to be at to have previously unlocked them. These ratings are carried across the entire Konnersport team as well, regardless of whether you choose Callie or Aiden.
Braking Point essentially becomes a mix of answering phone call in the main hub, going to the next chapter and participating in a race of some sort and then have a post-race cinematic that pushes the story forward and then you end up in the hub again. The hub sequences switch off between characters, including even segments with Casper Akkerman, who helps run the team under Davidoff Butler and has been around since the first iteration of Braking Point.
As in the past, Braking Points does get pretty dramatic at times which may or may not be your cup of tea. We won’t go into the details about what happens here to avoid spoilers, but I quite enjoyed having a story-based mode like this to experience in the game, while also being a good teaching tool for the game as well. Otherwise, you can just choose to skip this and move onto the other games modes if you want more focus on just the racing or technical side of things
My Team also returns this year through Career mode, which has received a major overhaul this time around. From the beginning, you have the option for Driver Career, My Team Career, Two Player Career, or Challenge Career. Driver Career is the most basic of the bunch where you create a single driver and play through their career, whether you choose to skip to F1 or start in F2 at the start. A new cool feature here is that the AI can now recruit Driver Icons to join their teams, which means you may see classic names showing up on other teams in the mode that can make things all the more difficult for you and your career. Challenge Career works similar to the regular Driver Career, except for you will be competing against an online leaderboard of real players.
Two Player Career lets you invite a friend online to join you and share a career mode together. As soon as you start, the game gives you two options, whether you and your teammate are locked to one team or not through contracts. This means you could eventually end up on rival teams if you are not locked together. At that point, you are prompted to invite a friend online and they will join your career that works just like the Driver Career does.
My Team Career is where the most changes have come this year as the mode was pretty much overhauled. In My Team Career, you can choose to take full control of all aspects of Konnersport, APXGP, or an entirely new team altogether. First, you need to create your owner and choose the level you want your team to start at in areas such as financials and facilities.
Once everything is set up, My Team consists of a hub that lets you look at upcoming activities, as well as the important areas of Team Owner, Engineering, Personnel, and Corporate. Team Owner is where you find messages, fan rating, and the new Owner Training. This is essentially a skill tree for your owner, allowing you to focus on the paths of engineering, personnel, and corporate development as you earn training points. The Engineering area is one of the most in-depth areas of the group, as it involves research and development, which are completely separate in this year’s game. This can get pretty involved and requires some learning to understand at first. Personnel is where you get to hire and maintain drivers and the workforce in general. Then you have Corporate, where sponsors and finance are located. Within each section are also specific facility improvements related to that area as well.
I really found myself getting into playing this mode, though I was a bit disappointed that this came as a result of the removal of the Owner-Driver option in the past. It would have been fun to still have that option here, but My Team Career is still a really enjoyable option, especially for simulation nerds like myself.
An interesting mode added in F1 25 is that of F1 The Movie, which revolves around the upcoming F1 movie starring Brad Pitt. This mode is set to let you play moments related to the upcoming movie, but the only problem is that the majority of this content will be coming more than a month after the release of the game. As of launch, you can watch the movie’s trailer and do a special preview test around the track that has an introductory scene and ending scene directly from the movie. They use actual clips from the movie here, which is really cool and should be a lot of fun to experience once the seven chapters are available. As of right now, we can only see the first two chapters listed, which say coming June 30, so hopefully the remaining five come the same day. For completing these seven chapters, you’ll be able to earn a special Sonny Hayes helmet, who is the character Pitt plays in the movie.
F1 World is the name for the mode that contains most of the basic content in F1 25. This includes going into solo races, online multiplayer races, as well as others like time trials and grand prix. While you can do plenty of customization here with your vehicles and players, these events are very much meant to be jumped in and out of very easily. There is pretty much a game option for any kind of player, whether they are looking to play more casually, competitive, or somewhere in between.
The Garage is also found within F1 World, where you can manage your Car Parts and Team Member upgrades that you’ve found while playing F1 World. The Customization area lets you alter your driver’s avatar, outfit, and even what their car’s base look is within this mode. This also includes the ability to create badges.
The most hardcore players once again have F1 League to play in F1 25. Here you can match up with other real players in leagues where you actually race with one another at the same time and can setup when you do so. This is done as a league until one driver sits upon the standings at the end of the season and is crowned the champion of the league. Utilizing EA Racenet, which can be accessed through a phone, tablet, or PC, you can setup your league and maintain them from there. It is kind of weird that you cannot setup anything with this mode in the actual game, but at least they make it pretty easy otherwise. F1 League is something that is beyond my level of expertise, but it’s definitely something that a lot of people can enjoy.
For those who just want some good ole traditional local multiplayer racing, F1 25 does include that as an option. There is the option for splitscreen for two opponents or there is even the option for a LAN game with multiple players aross a LAN connection. While this is likely the most uncommon way people will play today with the existence of online play and everything, I always appreciate a game including an option like this that takes me back to the days of having LAN parties with friends on the weekend on the original Xbox.
Verdict
While we await news of the future of the series, F1 25 is a really enjoyable entry in the series that offers players plenty to do, albeit without reinventing the wheel. The continuation of Braking Point is well done and is something fans of it in past entries will enjoy, and the varying options in My Career will make most players happy, though the removal of Owner-Driver was disappointing. F1 World is back again and mostly as you would expect here too. Perhaps the most unique addition is for F1 The Movie with the connection to the upcoming movie, but most of that content will have to wait until over a month post-release to actually enjoy. Especially after fixing the handling complaints found in last year’s game, F1 25 felt like a return to form that fans of the series will not want to skip.
Score: 8.5/10
Pros:
- Impressive visual detail using LIDAR
- Improved handling from last year’s game
- Braking Point Part 3 is well done
- My Team revamp
Cons:
- Removal of Driver-Owner option in Career
- Braking Point may be too dramatic at times for some
F1 25 was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.
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