I dont spin going 2% throttle in 8th gear anymore

I turned on Strict Track Limits before the Austrian GP and ended up with 10 Track Limit Violations. Absolutely realistic

I turned on Strict Track Limits before the Austrian GP and ended up with 10 Track Limit Violations. Absolutely realistic.

I saw Lance Stroll go into a barrier

Honestly, this game is so realistic

Would recommend

I've played a bit more pre-release, plus minus 12 hours on point of review. Here's my TL;DR

If you bought and liked F1 2021, you'll likely love F1 23.
Refined handling, new tracks with some adjusted layouts, overhauled texture work. (Also Braking Point Pt. 2 I guess)

If you bought F1 22 but want a much better experience, F1 23 might be for you.
I'd still consider waiting a year to buy the next installment, or pick this one up on sale because 70 bucks is outrageous.


Actual review points:

- Braking Point is campy, but adds some new 'twists' to the gameplay. I guess that's neat. Lines from the actual TV commentators are also appreciated. Even if 99% of the subtitles are completely wrong at points.

- F1 World seems like a fun little hub area that integrates most of the base modes that aren't Career or Story into an overarching single savegame feature - which every casual racing game seems to have nowadays, such as Forza or even the Grid games, in favor of ditching traditional separate save career modes.

- The aforementioned career modes themselves have been pretty much untouched, aside from some extra additions like the new icons or whatever. My Team is the thing that carries this franchise, and I am always happy to see it return. New polish on a well oiled machine. The My Driver career is also fun. Different flavor, similar experience.

- Sound wise we probably have some of the best sounds the game has seen since the last time I praised the sound (so since F1 2021).

- The AI is about as unpredictable as ever, but will leave more room than they did on occasion in F1 22, which is a positive.
They will also not fall back as much if you decide to give them a love tap with your rear wing, which makes racing closer, even under chaotic circumstances.

- The Battlepass now features: F1 World Items, such as Key Staff, Items, Cash and experience on top of the usual gloves, suits, radio lines and poses. In addition, if you get a duplicate item out of the random item points in said Battlepass, you will be refunded a small amount of Pit Coin.
The likeliness of this happening might be low, but it is at least something.

> Miscellaneous stuff:
Minor graphical issues.
Leftover bugs from last year, and the year before.
Occasional cut-outs on dialogue, which ties into the above mentioned bugs, from Commentators and Race Engineer.
Customization of your home is still in. It's still boring.
T-Shirts and Shoes can still be bought with pit coin. Boring. Not worth mentioning.
F1 World is a bit obtrusive, as you need to access it in order to access Time Trials and Grand Prix events.
F1 World also seems like a really wonky way of making people buy the aforementioned Battlepass.
F1 World might eventually turn into something like FIFA's Ultimate Team mode, which would be horrendous.
Loading screens aplenty. Nothing major if you have an SSD, it's the connecting to EA Services which is the issue.
I suspect the F1 World Hub being the key to Grand Prix and Time Trial mode is in order to keep pirates from accessing core features, should the game eventually end up cracked. But I'm not sure, maybe there is a workaround.

Also, no Jeff.
I miss Jeff.
Please come back.

-start a lobby with my friends
-damage is set to simulation
-qualis go good
-we start race
-we crash in first corner
-we end DNF
10/10 game, i like crash

better than '22. EA still sucks.

DU DU DU DU MAX VERSTAPPEN

too realistic, leclerc crashes at monaco

TL;DR: Not worth so much money. So, I would recommend this to people who did not buy since F1 2020 as then you have about a three year gap and I'd say it's probably fine, but with a warning that the only thing that has changed (for the better) is the handling model + the story mode (while cheesy, it's nice in some regards and a welcome change for those that are into it). I'll also recommend this to those who bought F122, but only if you only liked it and were held back by the handling model, this fixes it for sure. Below my take on the good, the yes, but... and the ugly.

THE GOOD:
-> Handling, where it seems they really listened to community feedback. This is both challenging enough but not to the point you have to shift into 5th gear to have a stable car ;-)... No, this is a good balance. The braking has been made more challenging even with rear locking of the brakes. Trail braking is more effective though and really they way to go fast in this game. On the other hand, assists are plenty if you don't want to bother learning this. The pad handling is nice as well as I can drive without assists and be quite consistent, though a wheel I prefer for muscle memory. But I can surely see a lot of pad players getting more out of this. Do dive into the settings to tune your pad/wheel for optimal feeling! This is really outstanding work from the EA/Codies team.
-> The music, always good. And if you don't like it, turn it off. The classic soundtrack is also still there, and equally good quality. Turn it off if you don't like it.

THE "YES, BUT...":
-> Story-mode is cool to see a return, but could have been executed a bit better (spoiler for more info). A lack of depth or immersion and sense of urgency. The writing feels rushed at the end and doesn't put enough focus on new game-mode systems like a red flag, or strategy changes. It's mostly do this race, do and interview and next >>... What I'm saying is: this could have been more and better..
So whilst good, there's a "but" - it could have been fleshed out better, more focus on some characters. Certainly because what we get & the (voice)-acting, cut-scenes, systems & menus in place are all great. So there's a lot of potential in this. I hope they don't wait another 2 yrs for a story mode...
-> F1 World is surely a great addition to the game. But the user experience is terrible. I'd say they have to look at inventory management optimization in the UI department, at the moment this experience leaves a lot to be desired for. To be frank: this is not a good experience at all. If you grind items from campaigns/missions/scenarios (or whatever), then every 4 items it has to go online & verify with the server. There's no "claim all" button. Same with the Compendium, "the stickerbook", which I think is a great addition for the F1-fans and read up on history etc... Where it lacks, again, is user experience. A great idea that is ruined by the UI. Here we're faced with again having to paste them in manually each time. This can be optimized while having the same experience. It feels like a waste of time actually. Whilst the idea itself behind it I find very good to be in a game like this.
-> Livery editor & car-upgrades: Nothing much has changed. But if we look at the competition, and if we look at the publisher they're under, I'm sure this needs changing in the future for sure. We need more flexibility here. This ties into upgrading your car, the look & feel when you apply upgrades, isn't felt visually. If you are going to build an rpg-like system in the game, you want to see visual progress not just stats. Other wings, other sidepod designs, other floor cutouts, etc... I'm sure it is difficult, but essential imho for a nicer experience.
-> The tracks are good enough for me in general. I like the small changes to Saudi for example, Red Bull Ring and more. But I lack updates to key tracks. One example is Spa, Belgium. This track saw no major updates and is still bumpy as hell since the start of the series. This is not realistic. There's tracks that never received updates, or if so, only minor. That needs changing - certainly for this kind of money each year they're asking. I do appreciate the addition of the new tracks and they didn't come later but were available on launch. I don't like Vegas, but I do like how it is modelled (so codies is not to blame for the track design ;)). Losail is modelled well and looks stunning imho - but again the track design is a bit flat (not a fault of codies) - give me Portugal then ;-)...
On that note: What I also like is that Portugal, France, China and so on - tracks that aren't in the roster any longer, but are still kept with more coming as they announced. I appreciate that.

THE BAD:
-> Career mode has gotten no love at all. It is the same system for years now. With all the additions for F1 World, you'd surely would be able to transfer at the very minimum these features to career mode to make it more fun and interesting. Because, career mode is why a lot of people buy this game. Not everyone wants to play online, or make a fake f1-team and race fake generic FOM f1-cars... Some want to be immersed in a career, and "live the life". Some features are still missing from previous instalments, like the interviews that impact certain outcomes and targets. Surely this makes it less immersive. No love has been given to this mode, they "just kept it in" as the bare minimum. But I expect more here. F1World is not for everyone, and we should not be let F1W to become FUT that destroyed the FIFA-series as well...
-> Pirelli challenge / supercars: fix the handling. Or rather get those cars out of the game. Put your resources elsewhere, maybe spice it up and get F3 or F1 Academy in for a change? And if you really cared about racing other sort of cars, maybe add in the Porsche Supercup cars that do support races. Or, you know what, add in the fan favourite old f1-cars back in... That makes a lot more sense imho. But then make sure the handling is on part, these "supercars" feel so bad now compared to the good handling & other racing games/sims...
-> Bugs: from red flags that mid-race that change the end results and give you no incentive at all to finish that race because even if you finish higher - the end result will be the same as when the red flag was called. To f2 grids after sprints not aligning, and more... How is it that these major bugs and issues were not caught during playtesting. These are core features, and not minor bugs. Unacceptable.
And yes, it will be patched, but after so much feedback (and I hope internal testing) this should have never happened. Minor bugs? Whilst I don't like that either, these major ones do impact your gameplay by a lot. To the point where I advise everyone to turn off red flags in the options, until it is patched and works correctly.