‘F1 2021’ continues to grow on what 2020 built. It’s a technical, story driver, fast, and fun ride. It’s a continuation into a franchise that has become what any F1 fan, or honestly racing fan in general has been wanting for years.
Folks, it’s that time of year! Get those tires warmed up and ready to hit the grid. Formula 1 is back in full swing. While we’re currently in one of the wildest Driver’s Championships in years, it’s time for you to challenge Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, and the rest of the grid in ‘F1 2021’. The latest installment in the Codemasters franchise takes a slightly different turn with some newer features, game modes, and upgrades. Well, it’s a new year and last year was a huge leap with ‘My Teams’ mode. How does this one hold up?
Getting right into with the new major addition, ‘Braking Point’. A story/career mode hybrid that puts you in the firesuit of Aiden Jackson. You’re immediately thrust into a tight F2 championship battle in 2019 where you must win the race to win the title. You take the championship and move on to a preselected team for your 2020 F1 Rooke Season. I chose Williams because I’m a fan of the team but others like Aston Martin, AlphaTauri, and Alfa Romeo are also available for you to run with. Once in F1, you’re teamed up with veteran driver Casper Akkerman. You also meet the biggest pain in your side in Devon Butler who is just some hot shot that even I found hateable as soon as he looked at me.
‘Braking Point’ will run you through shorter scenarios as you move through the ups and downs of the F1 seasons. As you are tearing up the Australian GP in your rookie debut and move your way up through the field, a less than stellar three-wide pass between you, Akkerman, and Butler forces you into your teammate and ruining the opening race of the season. After a tough start to the season, you find yourself getting the cold shoulder from Akkerman and Butler being the pompous driver you’d expect. ‘Braking Point’ is made up as a whole of these types of scenarios. From fighting to stay in contention for points, to running full races. In a vacuum, these seem kinda bland and mundane. However, I got really into it and fell in love. During my first night with the game, I ran through the entire 2020 season and found myself up to modern 2021 in the story. At first, I was kinda off-put by the idea of a story mode. ‘Braking Point’ proved me wrong and kept me wanting to move deeper and get closer to Aiden and his story to glory.
While ‘Braking Point’ is the highlight and the hot new item, ‘My Team’ returns and in a good way. To be honest, there wasn’t too much to improve upon here. Last year’s debut of the new mode in 2020 was huge for F1 fans as it was something we’d been craving. ‘My Teams’ for 2021 takes that base and puts the polish on it. Same depth and development for users to go into. So if the story and narrative aren’t your driving force (pun kinda intended), ‘My Teams’ will gladly hold your attention and fill the need.
The UI and HUD for the game also faced major upgrades and changes. Gone are the days of the dark menu background and in comes the lighter and brighter feeling. Again like ‘My Teams’ it feels like a lot of tweaking and polishing. In a lot of ways, it’s a facelift for the game. The same holds true for the actual driving (YES were finally getting to the actual point of the game). The cars feel a lot less planted as they did in 2020. You can’t just matte it off the corner and expect the car to stick. It’s slick and you gotta think about how you push the car. If you get those tires hot and slick, you pay the price. If you miss your apex in the corner and clip the curb, you can’t just throttle up and fix the mistake with speed. The car feels like what I believe an F1 car could feel like. Even the ERS and DRS feel like so much more than as to ‘F1 2020’.
I want to add, most of my experience with this year’s game was on my wheel and pedals (Logitech G29). I had previously ran ‘F1 2020’ on a controller for the PS4. While I will admit that the wheel is a phenomenal way to experience the game, you can get by fine on a controller.
One of the few things I was disappointed with was the lacking livery customization for the game. After it getting brought into ‘My Teams’ for 2020 I was hoping for something more. When we spoke with Lee Mather (interview here) he did mention this though. While not a game breaker by any means, I hope that one day we can have real sponsors (I can dream, people).
When it comes to ‘F1 2021’ it’s a big facelift from 2020. While we have a completely new game mode and the as expected visual and graphical upgrades, that’s it in some ways. It wasn’t a major overhaul, but that’s OK. ‘F1 2021’ is a great step for the franchise. ‘Braking Point’ is a story that so far has kept me addicted to playing and throwing challenges at me. ‘My Teams’ continues to be the game mode and in-depth experience that I want from a racing game. The car handling and AI are also just as solid as last year and in some ways even better for you to race with.
Overall, ‘F1 2021’ continues to grow on what 2020 built. It’s a technical, story driver, fast, and fun ride. It’s a continuation into a franchise that has become what any F1 fan, or honestly racing fan in general has been wanting for years.
