F1 25 Review – And Away We Go!

There’s no shortcuts about it – F1 24 was one of the worst in the franchise. Handling model that belonged better in Tokyo Drift than F1 was the biggest drawback. However, in a seemingly make or break situation with the Fan’s trust in the series, F1 25 has been one of the strongest launches of the franchise, especially in recent memory.

Braking Point Returns

Braking Point is back with Chapter 3 of the polarizing story mode for the F1 Franchise. You get to take Aiden Jackson and Callie Mayer through various scenarios that have a bit more dramatic flair than Netflix’s Drive To Survive (yeah, not an easy feat by a long shot but it does ‘succeed’).

The story is predictable, belonging more in a soap opera or telenovela but it does a great job of giving you a great way to get acquainted with the game and it’s changes, especially if you’re new to the series. And that’s the way I viewed it, a tutorial or welcome tour with cutscenes.

To it’s credit, the story does have some nice moments (even though most times the storyline doesn’t really go hand in hand with the results), and it made for a great afternoon when I was fighting a manflu. It was like a comfort food in F1 game form, dramatic but you always knew it was all going to be okay.

It will remain polarizing for the community but if you’ve enjoyed the past installments, you will continue to do so. A worthy addition to the series and a great end to the story… or is it? Guess we’ll find out in 2027.

Handling – The BIG one

After the handling of F1 24, this game needed a change, and it has come through in the biggest way. F1 25 is more akin to F1 21 in terms of reception because of this change. The handling feels more grounded and more predictable and logical for a car that’s formula 1 and not formula drift.

The Graphics – Looking better than ever

The visuals have seen a very noticeable upgrade, everything just looks ‘better’. Now I know it’s not the most technical term but you’re honestly going to be more hard pressed to find a better way to say it. Everything seems like an improvement, the UI however might be polarizing but personally I feel like it’s a change that I can get used to.

A new focus on My Team

MyTeam is the biggest focus of the year with a massive overhaul that will have you no longer be driver / owner, but just an owner with the ability to sign two drivers to your team, giving you a chance to play as either driver before the start of each grand prix weekend.

While the mode needed an overhaul, I am not convinced this was the direction to go. This disables the ability to have a custom driver as your team’s driver and while the owner approach sounds good in paper, all it really does is have you probably try to Min – Max the situation by hiring Max Verstappen and an F3 driver for your team, you keep driving as the F3 driver and Max becomes the ultimate team mate.

This feels like a direction change that wasn’t fully executed, I would have loved to have a proper team owner/team principal take on it and let me be a spectator with strategy changes and such. This would’ve given me a reason to hire 2 good drivers rather than just one great one. Even if it was just a case of allowing you to simulate the race. This feels like a half step change to what F1 Manager offers but not entirely giving you the joy from the mode – while taking away the joy having your custom driver take part in it.

Overall though, with the livery and decal manager revamp, MyTeam is truly better than ever before.

In-Reverse

With the introduction of reversed layouts for certain tracks, it’s a great first step for a feature that will not only add some variety to your gameplay but answer some interesting questions you may have, like how the banked turn of Zandvoort would feel in reverse, with F1 25 – You can find out!

I hope they continue to add more reversed track layouts, especially now that you can add them to your career and MyTeam playthroughs from your 2nd season onwards, bringing multiple season modes some much needed ‘freshness’.

More of the good things…

Be it more voice lines from drivers, team principals or engineers, even in multiplayer modes or the changes to the decal editor and such – there are a lot of small changes that all add up to feel like big steps forward.

And we race to the chequered flag!

F1 25 is truly a return to form for the franchise that has been floundering in the recent additions, you can see the sales respond in kind giving the franchise the best launch since F1 21, which to this day I’ll rank as the best F1 game that codemasters had developed.

This is a great return to form with enough new things that makes the update worth the price of admission, tie ups with the F1 Movie and having the APX GP car exclusive for the Iconic Edition gives it enough reasons for you to think about getting the pricier edition, but my suggestion?

Get the standard edition, wait for the sale that will inevitably hit and get the upgrade to Iconic. Most of F1 movie stuff is locked behind the movie’s release so you won’t be missing out on much.

But as a true return to form, there’s not much to complain about F1 25 and lots to love.

Disclaimer: The game was reviewed on PC and code was provided by EA.