Another year, another F1 game. As the physical competition heats up, players will be looking forward to the launch of this year’s licensed Formula 1 racing game, developed by Codemasters. The series is beloved by F1 enthusiasts, and the recent acquisition of Codemasters by Electronic Arts will no doubt help boost the game’s ambitions and potential. F1 2021 is coming to PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and S. The worldwide release is July 16 but if you purchase the Deluxe Edition of the game you can play it three days early on July 13, so check that out if you’re really keen.
F1 2021 New Features
This year’s F1 game will feature a whole new story mode called Braking Point (mind the pun) which is powered by next-gen visuals and brought to life with drama that persists on and off the track. If you’ve played some of the recent FIFA games, it’s a bit like Journey Mode, and I imagine fans of the Formula 1 Netflix series Drive to Survive will get a lot out of it. Braking Point will have you playing as fictional driver Aiden Jackson, and you’ll be able to pick between real teams as part of your climb to the top.
You’ll also be able to play co-operative or versus two-player career mode in F1 2021, which will no doubt add to the tension of your campaigns, where you’ll be upgrading your team’s engineering capabilities and developing your driver over the course of seasons.
Driver stats have naturally been updated to reflect the current F1 season, and this year’s new drivers like Yuki Tsunoda will also be brought to the game, alongside the rebranded teams. Players will be able to take part in a Real Season Start too, with in-game tracks realistically reflecting the real-life Grand Prixs of the F1 2021 season.
If you pay for the Deluxe Edition of the game, you’ll also be able to play as a number of F1 legends. Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button, David Coulthard and Felipe Massa will all be playable in the game’s My Team mode. Of course, if you’re playing on an Xbox Series X/S or a PlayStation 5, you’ll also be able to enjoy upgraded new-gen visuals and loading speeds, which is a nice lift from last year’s iteration.
F1 2021 Game Tracks
The tracks in the F1 2021 game will naturally reflect the Grand Prixs seen in the current F1 season, but with a few notable exceptions. The Portimao (Portugal), Imola (Italy) and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) circuits will all come to the game as “free post-launch content” according to Codemasters. There’s not a set date for when they will arrive, so be sure to watch Codemasters social media presence to find out when they will land.
If you’re looking for gameplay from F1 2021, check out this video of McLaren’s Lando Norris racing on the Azerbaijan Baku GP circuit ahead of competing in the real Baku circuit. Luckily he was a lot better in real life than he was in the game…
