As always, there are some features that didn’t make it for the next upcoming F1 title. Here are five cool features we are putting on our F1 22 wishlist.
Photo credit: Codemasters / EA
Codemasters and EA have recently announced most of the new features we can expect from the upcoming F1 game F1 22. While there is quite a bit of interesting information in there, as well as some pretty appealing new changes to the game, there are still plenty of features that we think it would be awesome to see added to the game. So, here are five new features we think would make F1 22 a truly great game.
1. MORE DRIVERS FOR F1 22 MY TEAM
On the face of it, this may seem like a strange request. After all, aren’t there over forty drivers already in My Team? And that’s not to mention the icons that certain versions of the game come with such as Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna. So why would we be asking for yet more drivers in My Team?
Look at it this way. While My Team does include the whole Formula 2 field, with each of those drivers having the potential to be signed by one of the F1 teams, most of them are never going to actually be selected by the teams. Their low stats simply make them bad options for any team, let alone just your own. Why would any team pick up Roy Nissany when they could opt for Guanyu Zhou? Most of the F2 drivers never see the light of day in My Team.
What this leads to is a relatively stale experience. One in which there are plenty of driver swaps, but you always end up with roughly the same drivers making up the field. To make this more dynamic, it would be far more interesting if drivers who had recently departed the sport could be called up for another chance.
Imagine finally getting Nico Hulkenberg his very first podium, or recalling Stoffel Vandoorne from the world of Formula E. Or perhaps you want to see ex-F2 champion Nyck de Vries given a fair chance at the highest level.
2. OPTIONS FOR FREQUENCY OF DRIVER TRANSFERS
Having talked about driver transfers, it’s fair to say that they aren’t everybody’s cup of tea. Plenty of players find the often very unrealistic driver transfers to be immersion-breaking and annoying. On the other side of things, there are those for whom the driver transfers aren’t frequent or crazy enough. Obviously, these two factions are in stark disagreement, but there is a way to appease both sides.
By adding a few different options for the volatility of the driver market in My Team, F1 22 could appeal to a lot more people with its flagship gamemode. If you are someone who is tired of seeing Nicholas Latifi getting his shot at Mercedes, then you could select the ‘realistic driver market’ option.
On the other hand, if you are unhappy that two seasons into your career, Red Bull still have Verstappen and Perez, you could select the ‘volatile driver market’ option. This would result in drivers being fired for the slightest of rough patches, and drivers like Marino Sato coming in hot for Ferrari. After all, chaos is a ladder.
Between these two, there could also be a ‘standard driver market’ option to round things out, which would essentially be the same as the current volatility levels. Of course, players should also be able to disable driver transfers completely if they wish. This way, there would be something for everyone.
3. CLASSIC SEASONS
The most recent MotoGP game release, MotoGP 22, features a cool new gamemode called NINE. This mode allows players to relive and participate in the 2009 MotoGP season by blending actual real life footage from the time alongside gameplay sequences. Wouldn’t it be cool to see something similar in F1 22?
Obviously, there isn’t any chance of this happening for the upcoming game. The release is only a couple of months away after all. However, the ability to replay classic seasons as an alternative to career mode would be great fun and excellent nostalgia-fuel.
Perhaps you have always wished that Giancarlo Fisichella could have claimed the win he deserved for Force India back at the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix. With this game mode, you could make that a reality!
Even if you don’t have an oddly specific historical score to settle, just being able to drive in a full field of cars that you remember from your childhood – whenever that may have been – would be such a lovely feeling, would it not? This would definitely be an upgrade on the old classic cars which used to be in the F1 games. It was never much fun racing an F2004 against a car from the 80s.
4. BETTER MOD SUPPORT FOR F1 22
Modding is a big feature of modern PC gaming. While it might not be so prominent in racing games in general compared to other genres, games like Assetto Corsa thrive on the mods that their communities create. But, there’s never really been a big modding scene for the F1 titles.
One of the main reasons to this is that there is a significant barrier to entry. If you want to install a mod for F1 2021, you have to do so via the game’s files. For some this is simple, but for others it can be very discouraging and difficult. What’s more, the lack of publicly available modding tools mean that there aren’t very many mods which get made in the first place.
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If F1 22 were to have Steam Workshop implementation, for instance, this would make installing and running mods a lot easier. Mods are an incredible resource to enhance a game’s replay-ability, but they are sadly hardly a factor with the F1 series.
5. BETTER ONLINE GAMEPLAY AND SPECTATOR MODE
These two points may not seem to go hand-in-hand, but we have put them together for a reason. Both of them would be a godsend to F1 league racing. First, lets talk about the online multiplayer in the F1 games. For years it has been riddled with issues and bugs, from weird safety car penalties to pit lane blockages and deynchronisations. Name something that could go wrong in a multiplayer race, and chances are it did go wrong at some point in F1 2021.
Recently, Codemasters took great pains to quash a resurfacing of the infamous desync issues that plagued F1 2021 and F1 2020 before it. This is encouraging news, and the fix was released within three weeks of the initial problem. However, while this was the biggest issue with F1 2021’s online multiplayer experience, there are many more. Hopefully this new hands-on approach from Codemasters will see more and more bugs vanquished for F1 22.
Finally, there is the spectator mode. As it stands, the spectator mode and the various options in F1 2021 aren’t bad. They’re fine. But they could be better. For instance, there is no option to display every driver’s current battery charge percentage on the timing tower instead of tyres or positions gained. But why not? Anyone who has watched high level league racing knows how crucially important ERS can be.
Additionally, there is no easy way to customise or mod the graphical overlay. Some leagues manage to do so with their streams, but these solutions often leave something to be desired. If there was a way to change between different spectator mode styles, or to enable lower third graphics, or to let leagues employ their own custom colour scheme to the timing tower, that would go a long way to improving the viewer experience.
Which of these five features from our F1 22 wishlist would you most want to see? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
