F1 22 has been with us for a few weeks now, and while we're still loving the experience of the new regulation cars the game modes themselves offer little that is new over last year's game.
In our F1 22 review we bemoaned the lack of innovation in My Team in particular. While the car is different and a few small things like new department events have been added, by and large it's the same journey as last year.
What could Codemasters do to freshen up My Team? We have a solution!
Adding to the My Team magic
When it was first introduced in F1 2020, My Team completely changed and enhanced the experience and really made the F1 series the best sports game out there.
Since then though, the mode has slightly stagnated. Codemasters has encountered a problem of having such a well-polished single-player experience, be it Career Mode or My Team, that finding places every year to make meaningful improvements is hard.
However, there is one glaring hole. Making your own power unit!
While it's unlikely that any team actually coming into Formula 1 would create their own engines, it's still a possibility which is why it should be within the Formula 1 game.
How custom engines could work
Much like the base My Team car, a My Team engine could start as the least powerful and reliable of the choices, but it would also be cheaper, or even free compared to being a customer team.
It could then take the place of the Powertrain facility, which makes no sense anyway if you are a customer team. Alfa Romeo isn't doing anything but buying Ferrari PUs and putting them into the car. You shouldn't have to spend your money or Resource Points on PU things if you are a customer team.
But as an engine manufacturer in your own right you would! It would add an extra layer of detail to My Team and give the chance for new options in the facility and true investment decisions.
Do you push the performance of your PUs to the absolute maximum but risk the blowouts we've seen from Ferrari and Red Bull this year, or do you go for the bulletproof approach that then lacks a little extra top speed? Will you focus on the energy recovery systems or the turbo & ICE?
It's a pathway with so many user-focused decisions with tangible on-track impacts that it could be a huge step forward for My Team while retaining all the things that Codemasters has finetuned over the years.
And best of all it is optional. You can still just be a customer team and enter F1 with a Mercedes PU and not worry about it.
When are we likely to see it?
Such a feature wouldn't be added mid-game in an update and because of Codemasters' two-year development cycle, it might not even appear in F1 23 either.
Next year is likely to focus on another story mode type adventure. Maybe Casper Akkerman is back as a Team Principal, who knows.
Instead, we might have to wait until F1 24 for such a feature. That would be a huge shame. We could take the first two years of My Team being similar, but with F1 22 mirroring last year so tightly it's a worry that we will have to wait an AGE for a true next step.
F1 22 is a good game, and while there are still a few kinks to iron out, it delivers that F1 racing we all love. Stagnation of single-player modes has been an ongoing theme with EA Sports titles over the last decade though, and we really hope the Formula 1 series isn't going the same way.