5 Thoughts From Playing EA Sports F1 25

F1 25 is now out. Well, if you stumped up the steep fee for the bells-and-whistles Iconic Edition – those who have gone for the base game will need to wait one more sleep.

We’ve been putting in the hours with Codemaster’s newest Formula 1 title over the past week and have a few mixed thoughts on it…

Handling tweaks are a welcome improvement

F1 25’s handling model has once again seen some significant changes compared with the previous title. In simple terms, it feels a lot more like F1 23 did – and that’s a good thing.

I’ve mostly played on a wheel, and save for wanting a bit more detail from the force feedback, it’s been a good experience. The immense grip levels of current F1 cars are well replicated, yet it doesn’t become a complete procession in driving if you switch assists off – there’s still the threat of getting on the power too early and facing an apex gearbox-first.

The biggest improvement comes on a controller, though. The game feels significantly more playable than F1 24 in its launch state. Inputs are smoother and generally more progressive, rather than having its predecessor’s inherent twitchiness.

MyTeam’s rework is a mixed bag

Codemasters has done a major reworking of the MyTeam driver-owner career mode, which sees you take over your own team. Clue’s in the name.

Let’s start with the good changes. Management of your team feels a lot more authentic now, with you having to manage relationships with your drivers, facility improvements being more in-depth than anything that’s come before and changes to the car development system.  Now, instead of simply researching an upgrade and voila, it’s on both your cars, you’ll now need to build separate components and choose which driver to prioritise them on.

Yet, the chase for that authenticity has lost probably the most fun bit of the whole mode – racing as yourself. Sure, it’s not realistic in modern F1 to have an owner-driver, but there’s a loss of satisfaction racing as someone else.

It also means you’ll more than likely end up hiring one star driver, picking the absolute cheapest salary option as your second driver and just choose to race as them for your whole career anyway.

Reverse tracks are more exciting than I expected

Reverse tracks have been in several racing games for years, pretty much since their inception. Being sold as a major new feature for the annual F1 games seemed a little lazy at first.

Yet, when you’re suddenly taking Silverstone’s Maggots and Becketts the wrong way around, it’s like having to learn a whole new language. Strange, uncanny and weirdly engaging.

It’d have been nice to see these available as options for career mode, rather than limited to custom events and time trials, but still, a welcome addition.

Braking Point feels a little more involved

Braking Point is back for a third iteration and, without offering any spoilers in case you want to play it, probably its best form so far.

Now, instead of lingering in the midfield fighting for survival, Konnersport and drivers Aiden Jackson and Callie Mayer are now competing at the top end of the sport.

Previous iterations were fun but felt a bit too linear, however, some welcome changes have alleviated that a bit. Now, you can pick which driver you want to race as for each chapter (some events will still see you drive as both at varying points, though), and that has a genuine impact on the outcome of the mode.

Oh, and there’s some neat story integration with the F1 movie coming too, but that’ll have to wait for another day.

It’s just another F1 game

While many of its changes are welcome, neat tweaks, F1 25 largely feels like ‘Another Codemasters F1 game’. It’s hardly a revolution, although what do you expect from an annual EA Sports-published release?

If you’re happy with that, then F1 25 is pretty easy to recommend. If you’re looking for a dramatically different title to F1 24, though, you’re not going to get it.

Before the days of review codes, my own rule of thumb was to buy every other F1 title. I’d still apply that here.