F1 24 uses the Ego technology platform for a 16th consecutive instalment – the game’s lead, Lee Mather, explains to OverTake how it has evolved and why it didn’t jump to a different game engine.
Images: EA
“New this, new that, but same game engine,” reads a comment on an OverTake social media post about this year’s upcoming official Formula 1 game.
EA SPORTS F1 24 is being created by a team predominately based in the UK city of Birmingham, and the same is true of its predecessors, dating back to the revelatory F1 2010.
That opening salvo and each subsequent yearly release all use the same underlying game technology, which Codemasters dubs ‘Ego’.
It has now powered 18 F1 games (including F1 Race Stars, F1 2009 on the Wii by Sumo Digital and this year’s latest), alongside other projects such as the Dirt series and numerous Grid variations.
For some, based on comments sections and subreddits, Ego seems to be the racing game industry’s malaise, while others are blissfully unaware.
The last public version change was ‘Ego Engine 4.0’ first seen in F1 2015, but according to the development team, the number belies updates and changes that have been made over the following releases.
“It changes significantly every year, and we have an ongoing internal joke that maybe we should increment the version number because it is so drastically different,” Lee Mather, Senior Creative Director on F1 24, tells OverTake.
“This year, for example, we have added dynamic diffuse global illumination (DDGI) for the lighting. We have up to 120fps on consoles plus all the different settings for PC that allow you to play in different ways.
“These are features that you can get in all the cutting-edge engines and think there's nothing that we don't have that other engines include or have coming.”
What was once a game engine to be used across multiple projects – even Operation Flashpoint military simulations – is now exclusively used by the F1 development team.
Under the stewardship of Electronic Arts, there have been several changes to the Codemasters’ organisational structure.
The former Codemasters Cheshire team responsible for DIRT 5 (which used OnRush as its progenitor, not Ego) was subsumed by Criterion Games to work on Need for Speed – a franchise that currently uses EA’s proprietary Frostbite basis.
Meanwhile, the long-standing Southam studio move away from Ego to Unreal Engine for EA SPORTS WRC, integrating DiRT Rally’s physics systems. The future of the Grid name is unclear.
Consequently, Ego is now used purely for single-seater race cars – something that Mather touts as an advantage:
“The team know every nut and bolt of it because it's something that they've created themselves.
“It's bespoke for the game, and we have total flexibility to do what we want with it. I don’t think we would be able to make huge changes to the physics so easily if it wasn't our tech.”
Perhaps, then, it is the sense of familiarity that leads to such reticence. Arguably there has never been a sudden step change in graphical fidelity between each instalment.
Instead, it's more akin to iPhone releases. The yearly updates seem minimal at the time but compare the current version with one from five years ago and the changes can be more noticeable.
It also perhaps doesn’t help when, in the past two seasons especially, there seems to have been a surfeit of bugs in the immediacy post-launch. This was something shared, as it happens, with EA SPORTS WRC, but in that instance running on Epic Games’ tech.
When asked if the F1 team would consider following the rally team onto Unreal Engine, Mather was quick to respond:
“We share information across all the [EA] teams. There is no requirement or need for us to make that move. There's no significant gain that we need on F1.
“There were obvious reasons [for them to switch], like being able to generate large rally stages, but that's something that our tech isn't required to do. We don't create a stage that's 30 miles long, we create a beautiful representation of a real-world Formula 1 circuit.”
While specifics about the inevitable F1 25 are understandably off-limits, it seems, for now, Ego is here to stay.
“We're going to be continuing to build and grow it,” Mather highlights.
“I think if you look back to where we moved over to this engine in 2015, you'll see that we've added a significant number of features and functionality to it, and we will continue to do so.”
If F1 24’s handling changes are truly as noticeable as what is being claimed and the game runs smoothly come its 31st May release, that would go some way to justify evolution instead of revolution.
If not, I suspect the same old comments may crop up in about 12 months from now...
What do you think? Vote in our poll up top and leave a comment below. Is it time for a game engine change for the F1 games, and if so, to what? Or would you like it to continue its current path?
Images: EA
“New this, new that, but same game engine,” reads a comment on an OverTake social media post about this year’s upcoming official Formula 1 game.
EA SPORTS F1 24 is being created by a team predominately based in the UK city of Birmingham, and the same is true of its predecessors, dating back to the revelatory F1 2010.
That opening salvo and each subsequent yearly release all use the same underlying game technology, which Codemasters dubs ‘Ego’.
It has now powered 18 F1 games (including F1 Race Stars, F1 2009 on the Wii by Sumo Digital and this year’s latest), alongside other projects such as the Dirt series and numerous Grid variations.
For some, based on comments sections and subreddits, Ego seems to be the racing game industry’s malaise, while others are blissfully unaware.
The last public version change was ‘Ego Engine 4.0’ first seen in F1 2015, but according to the development team, the number belies updates and changes that have been made over the following releases.
“It changes significantly every year, and we have an ongoing internal joke that maybe we should increment the version number because it is so drastically different,” Lee Mather, Senior Creative Director on F1 24, tells OverTake.
“This year, for example, we have added dynamic diffuse global illumination (DDGI) for the lighting. We have up to 120fps on consoles plus all the different settings for PC that allow you to play in different ways.
“These are features that you can get in all the cutting-edge engines and think there's nothing that we don't have that other engines include or have coming.”
The Lone Survivor
What was once a game engine to be used across multiple projects – even Operation Flashpoint military simulations – is now exclusively used by the F1 development team.
Under the stewardship of Electronic Arts, there have been several changes to the Codemasters’ organisational structure.
The former Codemasters Cheshire team responsible for DIRT 5 (which used OnRush as its progenitor, not Ego) was subsumed by Criterion Games to work on Need for Speed – a franchise that currently uses EA’s proprietary Frostbite basis.
Meanwhile, the long-standing Southam studio move away from Ego to Unreal Engine for EA SPORTS WRC, integrating DiRT Rally’s physics systems. The future of the Grid name is unclear.
Consequently, Ego is now used purely for single-seater race cars – something that Mather touts as an advantage:
“The team know every nut and bolt of it because it's something that they've created themselves.
“It's bespoke for the game, and we have total flexibility to do what we want with it. I don’t think we would be able to make huge changes to the physics so easily if it wasn't our tech.”
Perhaps, then, it is the sense of familiarity that leads to such reticence. Arguably there has never been a sudden step change in graphical fidelity between each instalment.
Instead, it's more akin to iPhone releases. The yearly updates seem minimal at the time but compare the current version with one from five years ago and the changes can be more noticeable.
It also perhaps doesn’t help when, in the past two seasons especially, there seems to have been a surfeit of bugs in the immediacy post-launch. This was something shared, as it happens, with EA SPORTS WRC, but in that instance running on Epic Games’ tech.
Unreal Off The Table
When asked if the F1 team would consider following the rally team onto Unreal Engine, Mather was quick to respond:
“We share information across all the [EA] teams. There is no requirement or need for us to make that move. There's no significant gain that we need on F1.
“There were obvious reasons [for them to switch], like being able to generate large rally stages, but that's something that our tech isn't required to do. We don't create a stage that's 30 miles long, we create a beautiful representation of a real-world Formula 1 circuit.”
While specifics about the inevitable F1 25 are understandably off-limits, it seems, for now, Ego is here to stay.
“We're going to be continuing to build and grow it,” Mather highlights.
“I think if you look back to where we moved over to this engine in 2015, you'll see that we've added a significant number of features and functionality to it, and we will continue to do so.”
If F1 24’s handling changes are truly as noticeable as what is being claimed and the game runs smoothly come its 31st May release, that would go some way to justify evolution instead of revolution.
If not, I suspect the same old comments may crop up in about 12 months from now...
What do you think? Vote in our poll up top and leave a comment below. Is it time for a game engine change for the F1 games, and if so, to what? Or would you like it to continue its current path?
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