The Future of F1...

Hey guys,

F1 23 is in the worst state of any F1 game. Several bugs that still need to be taken care of, the wrong driver lineup because Nyck de Vries is not there, and with every update, it just gets worse and worse.

However, I have an idea.

Since next year's calendar won't have any new drivers and tracks, just a slightly altered race calendar, it's probably the smartest to scrap F1 24 completely and just release the 2024 season as paid DLC for F1 23. I remember 704 Games doing a similar thing with NASCAR Heat 5, where you can pay to get access to the 2022 season. By doing this, you can switch between the 2023 and 2024 season in the menu, similar to F1 2015, which had 2014 and 2015 to choose. Also, you can create three new career saves for the 2024 season, because they're two separate seasons.

The great thing about this is that you can keep Nyck de Vries in the 2023 season, but get Daniel Ricciardo into the 2024 season, which is a good compromise in my opinion, as Daniel came to AlphaTauri halfway through 2023, and is kept for the 2024 season.

And I'm not done yet, because I have so many other ideas that EA SPORTS can consider doing:

• A driver rating slider. It's something we've been asking for since last year, but we never got it. By doing this, you can make weak drivers powerful, and vice versa. However, if you start a new Single Player Career, you get the option of using your own ratings or the default ratings that EA SPORTS set for the drivers. In Two Player Career and Online races though, you MUST reset the ratings to what they were before, as otherwise, there's tons of discrepancies with different ratings for all players, and then the game won't know what to do.
• And speaking of drivers, I have the idea of a so-called Contract menu, in which you can reassign the drivers to other teams. This is a very powerful tool for Single Player Career, as you can decide what driver roster to start with. You can say get Alexander Albon back to Red Bull, put Max Verstappen in the AlphaTauri, have Lewis Hamilton return home to McLaren and so on. Just like the ratings, you will be asked at the start of Single Player Career if you want to keep your settings or if you want to keep the default roster. And for Two Player Career and Online, again you must reset the roster to what it was. Really, EA SPORTS, why not even try to implement functions you've been doing for years in FIFA, Madden and NHL? It's just all wasted potential!
• And finally, the game needs an option to disable retirements for certain drivers. Lewis Hamilton once said that he might be continuing to race until he's 50 (actually he just wants his 8th/9th championship title), yet still, he's one of the first to retire. And I honestly don't see either Fernando Alonso or Nico Hulkenberg retire from F1 after starting a new contract. Why not have Max Verstappen retire, since he also publicly said that if Helmut Marko leaves F1 after next year, he'll leave F1 too. Really, even young drivers can say that they can't go any further in their career and just hang up their gloves. But unfortunately, this is not depicted in-game, and that's sad. I would love to have a grid without Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc or Pierre Gasly (no offense to the last two, I actually like them), but again, all wasted potential, EA SPORTS!

The future of F1 games is hanging on thin strings, and I think that a two year cycle per game with a paid DLC for the new season is the best way to handle it, and this also gives the developers more time to eradicate all bugs that pester the game before moving on to developing F1 25 in this case. But if things keep up like this, then I don't see any improvement, and then the sales will keep dropping, year after year, until nobody wants an EA SPORTS F1 game anymore. It's this time where EA SPORTS have to ask themselves, where did we go wrong, and how can we fix it? Well, this is the perfect solution, no discussion, and I hope they're taking it to heart.

Let's hope for the best.

Nico