Following last week’s teaser, Frontier Developments has lifted the covers off F1 Manager 2024, the third entry in the officially licensed F1 management series.
As we speculated from the teaser, F1 Manager 2024 will introduce one of the community's most highly requested features. Yes, you guessed it: custom teams are finally coming to the F1 Manager series.
Custom teams finally coming to F1 Manager
Frontier’s F1 Manager series puts you in the shoes of an F1 Team Principal, making crucial decisions to take your team to the top. The last two games restricted you to the official F1 teams, whether you wanted to dominate the season as Red Bull or rewrite history forging a spectacular comeback for Williams.
Conversely, Codemasters’ F1 games have allowed players to create and manage their own F1 team since F1 2020 introduced the fan-favourite My Team mode. Ever since the first F1 Manager game arrived in 2022, custom teams have been at the top of most fan's wishlists. Thankfully, Frontier has clearly been listening to fan's requests.
In the biggest shakeup for the series yet, F1 Manager 2024 will let players create and manage their own F1 team to victory in the new Create a Team mode.
Frontier’s answer to My Team, the Create a Team mode will let players carve their own path, design unique liveries, negotiate sponsorship deals to raise funds, and scout for driving talent to create their dream F1 team.
It’s an exciting and long-requested addition, but the announcement leaves plenty of unanswered questions. Presumably, a livery editor will let players create their own designs rather than choose from preset designs and change the colour.
The announcement trailer showcases a plethora of eye-catching team liveries, but a livery editor is not shown. It’s also not clear if your custom team will replace an existing team or serve as an eleventh team on the grid like in My Team.
F1 Manager's traditional career mode will also return with you managing one of the ten official teams on the grid.
New Mentality system and enhanced AI
Alongside custom teams, F1 Manager 2024 introduces a new mentality system, where staff and drivers will have individual personalities and unique demands. Further details are being kept under wraps for now, but we’ll hopefully find out more about how this intriguing system works soon.
Don’t get too complacent with your team either, because drivers and staff can be poached from other teams in another first for the series. Frontier is also promising “enhanced AI” that more closely reflects the real-life drivers, while the introduction of random mechanical failures will add a new layer of tension to races.
These are all welcome additions, showing that Frontier has been actively listening and responding to community feedback to make the F1 Manager the most authentic experience possible.
Summer release confirmed
F1 Manager 2024 is set to launch in the summer on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and Xbox One. A release date is yet to be confirmed. F1 Manager 2023 was released on 31 July last year, but we’ll have to wait and see if F1 Manager 2024 gets an earlier release like F1 24.
Curiously, F1 Manager 2024 will have a cheaper retail price of £29.99/$34.99/€34.99. That’s significantly cheaper than EA’s F1 24, with the deluxe Champions Edition retailing for an eye-watering £89.99 on consoles.
This could be in response to F1 Manager 2023’s disappointing sales to entice new players. Hopefully, the cheaper price combined with the highly-requested Create a Team mode can reinvigorate the series.
Building up to launch, "exciting reveals and new content" will be drip-fed in Frontier's Unlocked livestreams on the final Wednesday of every month.
Are you excited about F1 Manager 2024? Let us know in the comments below.
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