F1 2015: Preview

No, not the race season you watch from your sofa ... the race season you PLAY from your sofa

Bandai Namco Entertainment and Codemasters' new F1 title is due for release on June 12 and from our early preview it's the best yet and a significant leap forward in terms of graphics and physics.

Press conference strop mode as yet unconfirmed

Codemasters has been making F1 titles since 2010 so it certainly knows what it's doing with this genre. The 2015 game has been built from the ground up using the new EGO 4 game engine rather than simply rehash the previous year's title. The physics and tyre models appear very realistic from our first taste, limited in this instance to wet laps around Silverstone.

Chatting with Lee Mather, F1 2015 Principal Designer, the inevitable question of just how close is it to reality is an obvious one. "It's hard to judge how realistic it is compared to driving an actual F1 car, as the closest I've ever been is driving a simulator at one of the teams," he admits. "In terms of our accuracy of speeds, and in particular our aero and cornering speeds, we're incredibly close. Taking what I knew from the game and applying it to an F1 simulator felt very natural. We also build the cars based on as much real world data as we can lay our hands on. Wheelbase, weight, engine power, weight distribution, aero balance, suspension geometry and many other areas are all taken from real life. We also scrutinise the races and listen to the feedback on the type of handling characteristics each team exhibits."

You can race as any driver in a full championship season including practice, quali and, of course, the race itself. Commentary is taken care of by Anthony Davidson and David Croft - if you've played any FIFA games you'll know how good this feature is. There is also a broadcast system where leading up to the race you have a realistic build-up, including the commentators' thoughts on the upcoming race and replays which pretty much as you'd see on TV. You can also chat with your engineer regarding tyre strategy and the like.

"So you promise not to crash into anyone?"

Seemingly gamers don't require all that real-world info to be 'dumbed down' too much either. "Surprisingly dialling things back isn't something we needed to do. In fact, it was more the opposite," says Mather. "Having such a solid and stable base to work from with the new engine, the physics runs at such a rate that the feedback from the new tyre model makes learning to drive the car easier than if we had played around with things unrealistically. The inputs the player makes on their controller, be that a pad or steering wheel, feel natural. Which, in turn, makes the experience of driving an F1 car easier to relate to."

Lee also shared some insight into how the tracks were mapped. "Since we've had the F1 licence we've had the challenge of building circuits which were yet to exist in the real world. The starting point for any circuit is CAD data supplied to us by the circuit themselves; from this we can get the track ribbon. We also cross reference with multiple mapping services using a digital elevation model to get all of the elevation and camber changes correct. The final level of detail comes from our photographer, who attends each race track and takes 360-degree images at 10-metre intervals around the circuit. In total there is over a year of man hours in each circuit."

Appetites suitably whetted we look forward to the full game and the release in June!

Check out the Codemasters F1 2015 developers' blog here.

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Roma101

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