F1 Manager 2024's marketing is shifting up a gear with the launch of the Feature Focus series. This series highlights some of the new and exciting changes coming to the series this year.
The first of these videos provides a more in-depth look at Create a Team, F1 Manager 2024’s standout new game mode. A highly-requested feature for the franchise, players can build their own F1 team from the ground up.
Let’s take a look at Create a Team’s Feature Focus video, the newest game mode coming to F1 Manager 2024.
Customized creation
F1 Manager 2024’s Create a Team mode allows players to build their very own Formula 1 team. Taking the eleventh spot in the paddock, this mode brings true customization to the F1 Manager series for the first time.
Since F1 Manager 2022, fans have been asking Frontier to bring custom teams to the game. This year, Frontier has delivered that and more.
Everything about your team can be made bespoke. This includes your team’s name, logo, car livery, race suit design, and even backstory.
Sponsors are also crucial to your team’s success. Keeping them happy will lead to big payouts, perfect for the team’s budget, whereas upsetting them may risk losing their backing altogether.
We've already experienced the majority of this in our Create a Team hands-on preview. However, this has now been highlighted in the F1 Manager 2024's first Feature Focus video.
Creating history
Narrated by P1’s Matt Gallagher, F1 Manager 2024’s first Feature Focus video showcases the exciting new choices players will have in Create a Team. This journey starts right at the origin selection for your team.
Players can choose from six different origins for their team. These range from wealthy backers looking for quick success, to a struggling team that somehow made a technological breakthrough for the new season.
There’s also a custom option, where players can finetune their team origin to better suit their wants and needs. This option allows players to carefully customize their starting balance, facilities, and car performance to get the start they want.
Once players are satisfied with their origin, they need to select their driver lineup. By default, F1 Manager 2024 offers drivers that match the team’s origin, however, players can ignore this and choose their dream lineup if they so wish. This includes legends of the sport still on the grid, or up-and-coming talent ready for their opportunity.
The same is true for staff. Every member of your team’s staff can be selected from the vast list on offer. This includes the Head of Aerodynamics, the Sporting Director, the Technical Chief, and Race Engineers for each driver.
If you wish, you can randomize both driver and staff selection. Or, if you want to stick to realism, you can instead let the game recommend options based on your team setup.
With personnel sorted, it’s time for arguably the most important decision, your engine supplier. Here you can choose from the main four engine suppliers, these being Red Bull Powertrains, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Renault. Each has its pros and cons, so players will need to balance performance with budget for the best results.
With the spine of the team now complete, players can move onto arguably the best part of Create a Team, the logo and livery creator.
Designing identity
Every player in Create a Team can design their team’s logo, car livery, driver race suits, and staff uniform from scratch. This is undoubtedly the most customization ever seen in an F1 game, with dozens of design choices and thousands of colors available.
First up is the team branding. Here players choose up to three colors their team will display across their branding. This will be shown on the team’s uniform, as well as being used to denote cars on the track map.
Once the team’s identity has been decided, it’s off to the logo designer. Logos are created using layers, with up to 50 layers accessible to players. Layers consist of a single asset, with each layer able to be scaled, rotated, and colored individually from other layers.
Once combined, these layers form the overall logo for your team. Players will get lost for hours designing the perfect F1 logo for their team, with the logo visible on the timing tower, garages, and menu screens throughout their playthrough.
This level of detail also transfers over to the car livery designer. Here, players can use either their team’s colors or bespoke colors to paint the cars that will be seen during races.
Once again, the level of customization is mind-blowing. Several patterns are available to select as the foundation for the car. On this base layer, players can color individual areas of the car, as well as choose which material each color will display.
Gradients are also possible to select, meaning up to six colors can be used on each livery design. With materials added as well, this makes an almost limitless amount of possibilities.
Limited edition liveries are also included in Create a Team. This means players can create one-off liveries for races during a season, with it even possible to make a custom livery for every race on the calendar.
It’s also in this livery editor that players can add and customize sponsor logos once deals have been signed with backers.
Financing success
The final big choice players have when creating their teams is sponsors. These are the main sources of income for your team, with each sponsor available demanding various returns on your investment.
Some sponsors just want to interact with the team, while others require certain targets to be met on track. It’s important to choose the right sponsor to suit your team, so as to not risk losing a valuable revenue generator mid-season.
It’s also important to note what activities sponsors want between races. Setting up sponsor events affects the area of the team involved, with driver performance development rates, or even happiness being put on the line.
All of this will be covered in a future Feature Focus video, with the first episode only showing the sponsor customization. Once your sponsors have been chosen, it’s back to the livery editor to add their branding to the car.
Just like the logo creator, the sponsor branding can be recolored, resized, and relocated on the car to help make the livery stand out from the rest. This can be done for every sponsor logo, with some sponsors having more than one logo placed on the car.
Sponsor logos can also be tailored to your driver’s race suits. This works exactly like the car livery designer, with each logo able to be made bespoke to complement the overalls.
Helmet designs are also possible, with both drivers having the same design. This will help your drivers stand out from the rest of the grid, with their appearance hopefully as striking as their performance.
F1 Manager 2024 release date and platforms
F1 Manager 2024 is set to take the world of Formula 1 by storm this summer. The game will launch on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One on July 23. There is no early access period this year, with the grid all starting the race on the same date.
Two editions of the game will be available from launch, these being the Standard and Deluxe Editions. Preordering the Standard Edition will give players an extra F1 2024 Show Car livery preset for Create a Team.
Those who opt to preorder the Deluxe Edition will receive five extra liveries for Create a Team. This is on top of five fictional Race Replay events for players to get stuck into.
The Standard Edition of F1 Manager is currently available to preorder for £29.99 ($34.99) on all platforms. The Deluxe Edition has a moderate price increase, costing £39.99 ($44.99) on all platforms.
Frontier has also confirmed that F1 Manager 2024 will be digital-only, with no physical copies available to buy this year.
The Create a Team Feature Focus video is the first of many in-depth looks at F1 Manager 2024. Check out the full Create a Team Feature Focus video below:
Are you looking forward to Create a Team? Let us know below!
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