F1 22 is now live for players that have pre-ordered all versions of the game. This year's official Formula 1 game brings with it new, challenging cars to master. You'll need to ensure that you have the correct difficulty settings enabled.
So, what options are available? And how do you change them? We've got everything you need to know right here!
How to change difficulty settings
There are a few different ways that you can alter the difficulty settings of your game. The easiest and most straightforward is via the game's main home menu.
Go to "Game Options", then "Settings" before heading to "Assists". You'll then get the full list of difficulty options for the game. The main exception to this is the AI's difficulty, which has to be changed when you boot up a save.
All options
There are a lot of assist options in F1 22, with more being added each year. There are some generic pre-sets for difficulty levels, but you can change each individual option to suit your playstyle.
We'll give you a quick rundown of each options here:
- Steering assist and braking assist automatically turns and brakes the car, respectively, to make racing easier. We only recommend this for beginners.
- Anti-lock brakes prevent the wheels from locking up when braking.
- Traction control either prevents (when set to on) or reduced (when on medium) wheelspin, which damages the rear tyres and costs you lop time.
- Drift assist helps prevent spinning the car around when you lose grip.
- The Dynamic racing line shows the ideal racing line and when to lift off the throttle and brake.
- Gearbox sets the transmission settings, you can either go manual or automatic.
- Pit assist and pit release assist automatically help you while in the pit lane and during a pit stop.
- ERS Assist makes your Energy Recovery System deployment automatic when enabled. Likewise, the DRS Assist automatically opens DRS when it's available out on track.
When it comes to the speed of the AI (which can be changed elsewhere), it's hard to gauge which settings you need for this. In general, the AI is faster than last year, so you may need to lower this value compared to F1 2021.
How do I know which settings are best for me?
Like we mentioned before, the ideal settings for each player are unique to that player.
For example, you may get someone who wants fast AI but many assists enabled to help keep up. Conversely, some players may prefer to have less assists and slower AI.
The key to finding out what your best car settings are is through Time Trial. There is no substitute for putting in the hours on the virtual circuit. For the best AI settings, you'll need to make a Grand Prix race or start a save in My Team or Career Mode.