With two weeks left before the launch of F1 24, the latest installment in the licensed Formula 1 racing game series, we have sent a few questions to Codemasters to discuss some of the new features and improvements that fans will find in the game. The answers were provided by Senior Creative Director Lee Mather and Senior Producer Simon Lumb.
As a reminder, F1 24 debuts on May 31 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X. However, the Champions Edition ($20 more expensive than the Standard Edition) grants three days of early access, allowing owners to start playing on May 28.
What was the community's reaction to the announcements? Will you address some of the feedback that has emerged in the launch version and afterward, and if so, which?
Lee: We’ve seen positive feedback to the F1 24 announcement and players have really engaged with the deep dive videos we’ve delivered. Players are really excited about the handling and physics updates alongside the new Driver Career. As always, we’ll be looking to log all player feedback once the game has launched. Players who have been part of our beta program have given feedback on stability, physics, handling, and AI, and we’ve already made adjustments based on this.
What kind of tweaks and changes have been made to the AI?
Lee: With the significant changes in the physics and car setup in F1 24, the AI have also undergone a considerable amount of development to allow them to extract the best performance from the new model. This will be evident to the player in how they brake and exit corners and in the level of confidence they have when going wheel to wheel. The added stability of the cars this year impacts the ability of the AI to race cleanly in close proximity to the player.
Another area of major change in F1 24 is in how the AI will manage the updated ERS system. ERS management will have a significant impact on how both the player and the AI attack and defend.
What's your personal favorite new feature of F1 24?
Lee: I can never answer this with just one thing because most of the features in this year’s game are complementary to one another. We have the fantastic new Driver Career, which represents the world of F1, giving players so many ways to fulfill their goal of becoming an F1 World Champion or taking a team to the top of the Constructors Championship. None of this would be possible without an amazing and immersive on-track experience. The core of any racing game is how the cars feel and race and, of course, how great they look. These are both areas of significant advancement in F1 24.
Are there any improvements to the ray tracing features in F1 24?
Simon: Yes, in F1 24, we have extended the Ray Traced Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination solution. DDGI is a technique that better represents the light response in shaded areas. This gives us an extra dose of realism in terms of softer shadows, light response, and light bounce across such dramatic F1 locations as a bright (or rainy!) Monaco, the unmatchable light show of Las Vegas, or the lush forest of Spa Francochamps.
NVIDIA's Shader Execution Reordering, a feature from RTX 40 GPUs that accelerates ray tracing performance, was supported at launch in F1 23 but did not work as intended and was subsequently removed. Will it be available in this new game?
Simon: Working with our partners at NVIDIA, we aim to give every user the best possible performance in F1 through our technology implementation. SER is a feature on their latest GPUs that helps with some specific ways that game engines work regarding Ray Tracing efficiency. When SER support was introduced in F1 23 at launch, we discovered that the technology did not provide enough benefit on the whole as EGO is already heavily optimized for the Ray Tracing workloads that SER was designed to improve in other engines. As there was no benefit for players, we removed the option from the UI. It remains off for F1 24.
What we have enabled in F1 24, which was not previously available in F1 23, is NVIDIA's Frame Generation performance solution. We hope that players with 40-series enjoy this upgrade for F1 24.
Will there be any graphics updates (e.g., higher rendering solution, etc.) for the VR version of the game?
Simon: The VR solution will benefit from all of the new graphical updates added to the engine, with compatible hardware and a sufficiently powerful GPU.
Will F1 24 support NVIDIA and AMD's frame generation techniques at launch?
Simon: F1 24 will support Frame Generation for NVIDIA GPUs.
Will the game support triple screens/surround setups?
Simon: As has been the case in previous games, the game can be stretched across as many monitors as you have VRAM for. It is not currently perspective-correct, so in a 3-monitor setup, the side monitors look more stretched than the middle one. The UI is always rendered in a 16:9 aspect ratio, so in a 3-monitor setup, it will appear on the middle monitor only.
We are continuing to evaluate how we might better support such set ups and appreciate the enthusiasm from our players who want to get as close to the sport as possible.
Are there any joystick support additions compared to last year?
Lee: We’ve added support for the Turtle Beach Velocity One. With the changes to the physics this year, players will really feel what the car is doing beneath them on both a force feedback wheel or controller with rumble and haptic feedback.
Are there plans to ever bring back classic cars/tracks and integrate them in a more meaningful way?
Lee: We always have great fun with the classics and I’d never say never to them making a return at some point but there are no immediate plans for this. This year we’ve really focused on delivering an improved, expanded and deeper modern day F1 experience. Of course, the legends are all playable as part of the new Driver Career which is really fun, being able to play with such legends as your teammate opens up a whole new way to play Career.
Will other racing series, such as Formula 3, ever be included in the future? Are there plans to bring back the paddock atmosphere from games like F1 2010, 2016, and 2017?
Lee: There are no immediate plans for this. We are currently hard at work and focusing on F1 24.
You've mentioned that F1 24 is still powered by EGO Engine, which is bespoke and currently best for the game. However, your fellow Codemasters team from EA WRC switched to Unreal Engine. Do you see yourselves considering the same option for next year?
Lee: The EGO engine which F1 is built upon is bespoke to F1. It’s what gives us our ability to move and change effectively, we are continuously adding new physics and rendering tech allowing us to keep the engine up to date and delivering the latest tech. The requirements of F1 and WRC are very different with WRC moving to Unreal to open up the opportunity to deliver a specific feature, that being long stages, which isn’t really a need for a track-based game like F1.
One of the key strengths of EGO is its ability to scale and deliver a high quality experience based on the hardware it’s being played on. While people might think it is the same engine, every year we adapt and grow EGO adjusting it to support what we want to achieve in the game that year.
Thank you for your time.
