With Codemasters prioritizing other new features like F1 World and Braking Point, the Codemasters’ F1 game career modes have felt largely the same in recent years. That’s finally set to change this year as F1 24’s career mode is getting a long overdue revamp with a host of new features.
After highlighting the new handling changes, Codemasters and EA have released a new deep dive video looking at F1 2024’s all-new career mode, which is said to be the “most significant upgrade since 2016.”
Race as your favorite F1 hero
For the first time in the series, F1 24’s new Driver Career lets you step into the shoes of your favorite heroes in the current Formula 1 or Formula 2 championship, whether you aspire to dominate the season as Max Verstappen or help Lewis Hamilton rekindle his former glory.
Alternatively, you can still race as your own player avatar like in previous games or as an iconic driver from F1's rich history including Mark Webber, Nigel Mansell, Ayroton Senna, and Michael Schumacher. Driver likenesses also look more true to life in footage from the Career Mode deep dive.
Driver ratings
Driver ratings are more important than ever in the new career mode. Your performance in career mode affects your driver rating, which will influence rivalries with other drivers, your teammate’s relationship, and contract negotiations.
As you rise up the ranks, your driver’s reputation in the paddock and performance out on the track are represented in a new recognition system. This is influenced by factors like how you perform on track, completing contract targets, and how loyal you are to your team. Having strong recognition means you’ll be recognized as the lead driver in your team.
This unlocks a new R&D Rush mechanic that gives you a stronger influence over R&D. Drivers with greater reputations will motivate the team to build parts faster with less risk of developments failing. Unlocking R&D Rush also gives you the ability to develop multiple upgrades at once and gain access to secret upgrades to get the edge over rivals.
Conversely, if have a lower recognition rating, your teammate can “take over the reins and start developing the car in a direction you’re not so interested in. You may want to concentrate on aero, they may find the engine development more appealing," said Mather.
Past F1 games have offered little incentive to replay the career mode after completing the first season. Codemasters aims to change this with new R&D Scenarios that unlock after completing the first season.
These can be applied to add modifiers such as limiting your funds and introducing R&D problems to make it more difficult to progress. Alternatively, you can add a modifier for unlimited funds.
“It’s a great way to adjust the way that those subsequent seasons play once you’ve completed the first season,” Mather explained in a media briefing attended by RacingGames, adding that R&D Scenarios are a way of “keeping the career season feeling fresh and different and giving you a different way to play.”
Accolades
Key milestones in a driver’s career are now highlighted in accolades, which give short, medium, and long-term goals. These accolades vary depending on if you’re playing as an established driver or a rookie and affect your driver performance statistics.
“As a new player driving as myself, the first accolade may be ‘attend a practice session’ or ‘complete a race weekend,’" said Mather. "For Lewis Hamilton, an achievable accolade would be ‘take that eighth world championship.’” Entering as Max Verstappen, on the other hand, will see you try to defend your World Title.
New team specialists will help you achieve targets to improve your relationship and unlock extra R&D perks. They set goals to help develop the car, team, and relationships with your team and rival teams.
New contract system and secret meetings
F1 24’s Driver Career mode introduces a new contract system. When you sign a contract with a team, you’ll set your targets before negotiating better deals with your team. Failing to achieve these objects will see you get demoted.
“You can set yourself incredibly lofty goals and then find yourself not achieving them," Mather explained. "Your reputation in the paddock starts to go down. The chance that the team you’re negotiating with is going to take you at the end of the contract window is reduced, so you need to go back in and start renegotiating those terms.
"If you start to negotiate too low, they’re going to say ‘this driver is blatantly not good enough for us’ and the opportunity goes away so you’ll need to start looking for new opportunities. You could find yourself negotiating your way back down the grid if negotiations don’t go to plan.”
New ‘secret meetings’ will allow you to negotiate a contract with a rival team. However, this is a risky move as your reputation will be affected if other teams find out, sparking rumors in the paddock and impacting your relationship with your team.
On-track objectives
As you race, your engineer will give you short-term objectives reacting to scenarios. For example, your engine could start overheating after following a car in front too closely. Your engineer will then respond by recommending you get out of the slipstream for a period of time to cool the engine.
If you’re miles ahead of the pack but another driver is gaining on you, your engineer will give advice on how to retain the lead. These targets will “motivate you and give you insight into how to improve your position and performance on the track.”
Racing rivalries
From Prost vs. Senna to Hamilton vs. Verstappen, driver and team have been a key part of Formula 1’s history. F1 24’s new career mode will embrace this with an expanded rivalry system. Battling with teammates will affect your recognition in the paddock and in R&D opportunities. Likewise, outperforming your closest championship rival or drivers with a similar skill level will open new contract opportunities in rival teams.
There will be three rivalry levels with increasing intensity. Regular rivalries are short-term rivalries spanning a few races, which are often dramatized in Drive to Survive. A Heated rivalry can last longer and comes with greater rewards, while Career Defining rivalries are inspired by Senna and Prost, lasting multiple seasons.
New Challenge Career
“We wanted to do a lot more with Driver Career this year," said Mather. "We wanted to try and bring in more elements of social and competitive play across the Driver Career.” This is the concept for F1 24’s new Challenge Career mode.
For players who don’t want to enter a full 24-race championship, Challenge Career sees you compete with other players in curated seasons split into “bite-sized episodes” with set drivers, teams, circuits and R&D. Each episode lasts a few weeks and features a limited selection of tracks. To keep everything fair, you can pick one of four AI difficulty levels (easy, normal, challenging, and hard) and compete with players at a similar skill level.
Your results and progress are compared to other players in an online leaderboard. Top-ranking players will earn rewards for completing objectives and winning the Challenge Career season.
“This is a really fun and cool way to engage with the Driver Career in a different way through the asynchronous leaderboard structure where you’ll see how you’re performing against your peers.”
Future Challenge Career seasons will also be influenced by the community, with regular voting polls for drivers, teams, circuits, weather conditions, race lengths, and R&D.
Two-player Driver Career
Two-player Driver Career is also returning, allowing you to race with a friend either as a teammate or compete against each other in rival teams.
This year’s two-player career promises a more substantial experience thanks to the new contracts, recognition, rivalries, and accolades systems introduced in the single-player career. You may even end up forming a heated rivalry with one of your friends.
These are all welcome changes on paper, but we'll have to wait until we've been hands-on with the game to find out if they reinvigorate F1’s career mode after years of stagnation.
What do you think of the changes Codemasters has made to F1 24's career mode?
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