The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix might still be months away, but racing fans will soon have the opportunity to virtually tackle the Yas Marina Circuit with the release of a state-of-the-art Formula One videogame.
F1 2015 is the first official game to be developed for the "eighth generation" PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, and developers Codemasters have run rampant with the new firepower, promising enough technical upgrades and fresh features to gratify even the most geeky gamer.
The Friday release – which also runs on PC – marks the seventh edition of the franchise. This time, however, everything was developed from scratch, with a brand-new “game engine” that has been in development for more than two years.
“We wanted to start fresh,” says principal game designer Lee Mather. “We knew we had to come out with something special this time.
“Visually, it’s the best representation of a Formula One game ever made – looking at the screen from a distance, you might mistake it for the real thing.”
We’re promised this game will be faster, more detailed and responsive than previous editions.
Geektastic. But back to Abu Dhabi. How does the track compare?
“We got to really go to town on that one,” says Mather. “In terms of the buildings, the circuit, it is quite built-up.”
And the beautiful lighting on the Yas Viceroy hotel confirms that this game offers some “really nice surprises”, according to Mather.
“As a player, it’s a really exciting track – a couple of great long straights and then a very tetchy end. It’s a great end to the season – really going out with a bang.”
Among the additions most likely to excite true F1 devotees is a new “pro season” mode, which allows gamers to live out an entire season in real time. Each race weekend offers about six hours of gaming, including three practice sessions and qualifying round, on top of the two-hour race – that’s more than 100 gaming hours to complete the season.
Another first is a new voice-recognition system that allows gamers to “talk” to their technical team in the pits and make live enquiries about their car’s state and the competition.
Other changes include a new broadcast-focused element, with a pre-race introduction from the United Kingdom’s Sky Sports presenters David Croft and Anthony Davidson, and fresh off-track sequences developed with motion-capture technology.
“The drivers are very busy people, and getting the photographs we need takes a lot of time and effort,” says Mather.
That kind of access is a hard-earned privilege: Codemasters has held the exclusive videogames rights to F1 since 2009, with a team of about 100 people devoted to the series at offices in both the UK and Malaysia.
Being officially endorsed by such a high-profile franchise inevitably creates challenges. The biggest problem is that none of the car details are available until the “car reveals”, just weeks before the start of the race season.
To get around this hurdle, updates of the latest team changes, car specs, drivers and sponsors will be available to download upon the game’s release.
“Everything in the game exists in the real world, so we have to pay attention to every little detail,” says Mather. “The location of an aerial, a sticker here or there – the fans are so into it that they notice every little thing.”
Like many of the game’s designers, Mather, 38, is a self-confessed motorsport devotee who has attended Grand Prix races around the world. Still, after half a decade working exclusively on the F1 series, he would be forgiven for being sick at the sight of the game. That, surprisingly, is not the case.
“I’m really looking forward to sitting down and getting stuck into a season from start to end,” he says, acknowledging it’s likely to conflict with family commitments.
“Playing it in the office, you don’t really have the opportunity to enjoy it – you’re always looking for something [wrong],” he says.
With all that practice, does Mather have any advice for gamers queuing up to get their hands on the title come Friday?
“With racing games it’s all about learning the circuit,” he says.
“Knowing the breaking point, learning the optimum time to turn into a corner – and when to accelerate out of it.”
• F1 2015 will be released worldwide on Friday, July 10 and will be stocked by Virgin Megastore
rgarratt@thenational.ae
