Review — F1 2021
As the real F1 Championship is in full swing, you can experience the thrills of F1 racing for yourself in F1 2021.
While a new era for Formula 1 is still a season away, a new era for the F1 games is already upon us, as Codemasters was acquired by Electronic Arts. Given the acquisition mid-development of F1 2021, there’s very little to be noticed about being under EA Sports umbrella, resulting in a very familiar experience, which will both pleasure and annoy fans of the series.
Drive to Survive
The highlight of this year is definitely Braking Point, a Netflix-esque ‘Drive to Survive’ like experience which puts you in the shoes of two drivers and their dynamics within a Formula 1 team. You’ll see the story unfold through neat CGI cutscenes as well as play crucial parts of the drama yourself, by driving certain parts of certain races throughout the span of two seasons. It’s a fun yet forgettable experience, especially for those expecting a realistic turn of events being presented. For a very first attempt at this type of game mode, it’s a decent job and good enough to make us hopeful for next year’s ‘season’ of Braking Point.
Apart from that, it’s pretty much the same game as last year off the track, with a few small additions and tweaks here and there. Purists will mostly appreciate the sheer amount of extra settings, making it possible to customise F1 2021’s Career Modes even more to your wishes. A two player career mode is also new, which will probably bring lots of joy to a more niche group of players. The biggest disappointment are the tracks themselves. New additions like the Portuguese Grand Prix are completely missing in action and while they’re being promised as free DLC, any ETA is still missing making the whole ‘authentic’ F1 experience, well.. less authentic. On top of this, the new ‘Sprint Race’ format is also completely ignored, adding to the disappointment.
Outdated Rankings
This disappointment is even more amplified on the track. The minimum expectation from any F1 fan is to launch the new game and have the performance of the current season reflected in the game. It still boggles my mind that up until the time of writing, F1 2021 is using the performance rankings of the cars of last season. This means that Mercedes is still noticeably stronger than Red Bull, that Aston Martin outperforms McLaren with ease and that Williams barely does better than Haas. At some point, this will get updated but it’s still unacceptable that a game that launches mid season is unable to fulfil this minimum expectation. It’s like FIFA 22 launching with the same player rating as FIFA 21. Puzzling.
Luckily, the driving itself is still very good. The game looks gorgeous and battles are fun and challenging due to a more aggressive AI. All in all, it does feel like a ‘leap year’ almost for F1 2021. My guess is that a big part of the development team at Codemasters moved to F1 2022 already to have more time and resources for that version, given the complete overhaul of the cars and dynamics in the sport next season. Understandable, but this leaves F1 2021 to be a disappointing experience, luckily still enjoyable at a base level.
3/5
Played on Xbox One & PC.
Xbox One review code provided by Electronic Arts.
