A new presentation from Codemasters and EA has shown off some further information on the upcoming F1 25 title, looking into some of the year-on-year improvements revealed to us as part of a hands-on earlier this month.
Probably the most significant change for 2025 compared to 2024 is the decision to drop support for eighth-generation consoles: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We had an opportunity to speak to Lee Mather, senior creative director for the F1 series, and Gavin Cooper who is creative director on the odd-year titles, about this choice:
“It’s really to set us up for the future”, says Mather. “What it does is it releases resources that would previously have been servicing the previous generation of consoles, so when you consider as well the scale of our game it’s a huge QV resource we need as well to test across all those platforms.
“So really it opens up the ability for us to focus on other areas of the game but also for the long-term, so this year you will definitely see an improvement in the graphical fidelity. The track looks better because we have a lighting pass which we can focus on less platforms. For the long-term again it’ll open up the opportunity to have more intelligent more dynamic AI.”
We also asked if there was a possibility that the sales split for 2024 — with the PS5 title appearing high up sales lists and the PS4 very much not — or projected for 2025, simply made an eighth-generation version not worth the time when offset against the improvements above. However the duo couldn’t comment on sales to any specificity.
Tracks are the center of attention for EA’s own “Deep Dive” and there’s more than a few big changes coming along too — with the main one being the arrival of LIDAR-scanned tracks.
At launch there’ll be five circuits recreated from new LIDAR scans performed at race weekends by Formula One itself, converted by the Codemasters team. These will be Bahrain, Imola, Melbourne, Miami, and Suzuka.
“LIDAR tracks are a win across the board for us,” says Mather. “We get a lot of value out of what is a lot of work to rebuild all those tracks in LIDAR… It’s all about two things: visual fidelity and accuracy, but also the actual fidelity and accuracy of the track ribbon.”
“To somebody who’s a more casual fan, they watch the sport, they saw Suzuka… and they go ‘oh that looks beautiful’. They can fire the game up, and they get to see exactly what they saw on TV. So that really hits authenticity for that kind of player.”
That leans into a part of the visual upgrades brought by LIDAR in terms of track surroundings, with the team using the scans to introduce more accurate foliage — or what Cooper refers to as “species-correct placement”. You may notice, for example, new cherry blossom trees at Suzuka, compared to the previous more generic trees, as perhaps the most obvious example.
“Then you come to the esports players and the sim racers,” continues Mather. “They get the kerbs that are right, they get the potholes that are right, they get all the visual detail that gives them points to brake. It really caters to a broad spectrum.”
Although we’re only seeing five such circuits at launch, there’s more to come too. The Formula One team continues to scan the tracks at race weekends, and the environment creation team estimates a 6-8 month duration — more for circuits with more complex surroundings — from receiving the scan to it appearing in the game.
“Formula 1 is scanning the tracks as the season goes on for us,” says Mather, “So that’s why we’re able to do them in the order that we’re doing them, and that’s why the choices are coming as they are. Obviously we’re rolling as the data comes in as well, so it’s a long-term thing to overhaul the circuits in-game.”
One additional note on the visual front, but for PC only, is a new “Path Tracing” feature. This is similar in principle to ray tracing and does the same job, but uses a probabilistic solution to determine where light rays are likely to travel rather than tracking exact paths and allows for a more natural interpretation of lighting from multiple direct and indirect sources.
However, there is another detail with regards to tracks was already shown in the initial teaser but only explicitly confirmed at the media event earlier in the month, and publicly today: reverse tracks.
Three tracks have been selected to be the first ever reverse-layout course in the game’s history, and can be driven the wrong way about in not only time trial and multiplayer but in full GP weekend simulations and even added into career mode.
We already spotted all three tracks in that original trailer, with Red Bull Ring, Suzuka, and Zandvoort selected for the reverse treatment. “We’ve picked what we think are the three best contenders,” says Cooper. “Not every track really is suitable to be raced backwards, some are going to be more fun than others.”
“On paper they sound really simple. I’m sure a lot of our fans will think it’s as simple as picking a car up and spinning it around; there’s a lot more to it than that.
“It’s the same visuals but all of the other track-relevant information that makes it something you can play in the game has to be done again: DRS triggering, AI training information, marshal posts, start-line gantries, there’s a lot that goes into these changes.”
“We’ve been able to do this for what we think are the three best candidate tracks in F1 25. Not every track will work well playing backwards, but we think these three represent a really fun experience.”
In our hands-on, we can largely concur with the assessment, though it’s worth noting that barrier placement hasn’t changed in the build we drove on so some of the emergency access areas look a bit dicey. Reverse Red Bull Ring will be familiar to GRID players, while Silverstone’s Stowe Corner is still a track limits menace in either direction.
Still on the visual front, but also leaning into audio, there’s some changes to the character animations from certain scenes and cinematics, such as post-race interviews.
A new technology from NVIDIA called Audio2Face allows Codemaster to create more closely matched facial expressions for spoken lines, lending more a natural feel to these cutscenes. Players of older games may have noticed that responses from characters were not always filmed showing their face, but focusing on interviewer Natalie Pinkham’s earnest nodding; that was to mask the limitations of the facial animations, and is a notable change in F1 25.
There’s more customization too, with big changes coming to the car design editor. We already touched on one in the My Team dive last week, with title sponsors coming into the game. In essence these bring appropriate and realistic colorways for the brands which pay your way to the grid.
Outside that, you can personalize your own car with an overhauled decal editor. This is intended to allow players to create more authentic liveries with additional freedom for resizing, orienting, and repositioning decals, as well as more appropriate coloring – “real logos have a color identity, a visual language; Coca-Cola is red and it’s instantly identifiable,” says Cooper. Driver numbers are also available in new fonts and colors, independently in different positions.
Special edition liveries used by teams in real events will also experience a change. Rather than applying the livery to the F1 World car as a permanent feature or temporarily replacing the livery on the real car, special edition liveries now appear in an independent inventory on the correct vehicle.
Other updates for 2025 include the addition of racer/presenter Naomi Schiff alongside the aforementioned Pinkham and Anthony Davidson as presenters in the career mode and My Team. There’s also a near-doubling of real driver and engineer audio lines, with new voice lines for scoring pole position, for flags, and also from team principals.
The F1 World feature has new collaborative multiplayer events called “invitationals” which include special objectives and achievement flags that celebrate the driver of the day, the cleanest driver, the driver with the most overtakes and such, to promote positive player interactions.
We’ll have more from the F1 25 hands-on and interviews soon, along with more news when we get it. F1 25 will launch on Friday May 30, on PC and ninth-gen consoles, with three days’ early access for players who pick up the Iconic Edition starting Tuesday May 27.
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