F1 Manager 2024 Review | PlayStation 5

Following Forza Motorsport last year, there was a noticeable gap in the racing game genre. F1 enthusiasts were thrilled when Frontier Developments debuted F1 Manager in 2022, allowing them to experience the sport differently. F1 Manager series fans have been waiting for the release of F1 Manager 2024 due to the newly announced features.

Apart from the new features, the Create A Team mode was a necessary addition and the primary reason most of the series fans will purchase this game. With just a handful of minor issues, Frontier Development has continued to impress fans with its F1 Manager strategy games, and F1 Manager 2024 is the third installment in the series.

 

While similar to the previous installment, it's still a solid and entertaining game, but still not flawless. If you have previously tried to take on the role of a Principal Manager, you should be right away familiar with your way around the game's menus since the game stays faithful to the track developed last year. The game's mechanics go beyond just managing the racing vehicle and drivers, including tactics for pit stops and cues on whether to attack or defend track positions.

The inclusion of new scenarios like the weather impact, a flat tire, etc. is a nice touch that fans have been asking for. In addition to developing new components to enhance the car's performance, managing the relationships with the rest of the team, producing parts, and renewing contracts are all ancillary areas that need your attention.

Frontier went even deeper this year by introducing one of the new features that really made a difference. The human resource management of the drivers and other key staff. It's controlled by a Mentality Hub, where the elements that affect their mood and, by extension, their productivity, are defined and studied.

Frontier is clearly going for the gradual update route with this installment, but hey, at least there are some nice upgrades compared to the last one. This year's Sprint follows the revamped format, which was missing from the previous year's version.

While the mentality system's usefulness is yet to be determined, the new helicopter camera opens up more possibilities on race day (or any session, really), and Create A Team is a welcome addition that enhances entanglement and is a welcome change from the game's previous career mode.

 

Among F1 Manager 2024's most anticipated features is the ability to build a team from scratch. This gives you the freedom to create and oversee your very own Formula One team. From the very beginning, you decide how you want your squad to be structured.

Whether you'd prefer to go the extra mile with the greatest facilities, a massive budget, or the greatest car on the circuit, it all depends on how you want these things. The decision is yours; alternatively, you could choose to begin with little resources and gradually increase them.

For instance, one approach to play is to make significant investments in the facilities. Bring in world-class drivers like Hamilton and Verstappen, but let them drive in a less powerful car in the beginning. This makes it a rewarding task to improve your car while including drivers who are regarded as F1 superstars.

Another option is to use one of the pre-made backgrounds. Imagine juggling the new F1 operations of a car company with the task of restoring a long-lost squad, just one example of the many scenarios that these backgrounds might provide. Your initial funds, cars, and infrastructure are all impacted by these decisions.

Particularly in the EA F1 games, the possibility of establishing a customized squad has been a much-requested feature. F1 Manager 2024 has eventually included it. By altering the car's intricate details, performance, and infrastructure capacity, you have the power to determine the level of competition that your new squad will face. Also, you get to be the designer of your team's driver outfits, livery, and logo. These personalization choices may not be extensive, but they represent a vast upgrade over earlier versions.

Not only have the looks been improved, but the gameplay mechanics have also been strengthened. Your budget will be determined by the quality of the team that you want to sign, but you have the ability to sign two drivers and technical staff.

Successful financial management and sponsorship acquisition are vital to securing early commitments from elite drivers like Hamilton and Verstappen. The role of sponsors is more prominent in F1 Manager 2024. It's more involved than merely choosing sponsors and reaching goals.

You engage with them on a more substantial level now. Now alongside your primary sponsor, you have the choice of five other sponsors. These sponsors bring in more revenue with their activities, but they might affect how well your team does. Sponsorships might seem like a burden at times, unfortunately.

Perhaps that's the idea, and Frontier is trying to tell us a tough life lesson in an optimistic way. Whatever the situation may be, it's annoying every time the screen appears, forcing you to do repetitive duties that don't seem vital beyond increasing the funds in your account.

An engaging challenge is striking a balance between the demands of your sponsors and the vital revenue they provide; this requires you to consider the ripple impact of each event on many parts of your business.

 

For example, a business appearance can reduce a driver's optimism, or a filming day might force a facility to produce less than usual. Between sessions, you'll mostly be concerned with moving the calendar along; after that, you'll have your pick of the F1 back office's demanding operations, such as developing cars, negotiating with sponsors, and evaluating employees.

F1 Manager 2024 introduces a new mechanism that lets you control the mindset of your drivers and crew. Their needs must be balanced. When we give too much weight to one driver, we risk devaluing the other.

Problems might also arise if you do not pay sufficient attention to your star driver. Keeping individuals happy is essential to sustaining excellent performance, since team performance may also affect the morale and efficiency of the staff members.

Additionally, there have been modifications made to the training of young drivers. In the previous installments, it was necessary to recruit them as backups and provide them with enough practice time. You now can assign them to F3 and F2 to further improve their abilities, which adds an additional layer of planning to the process for controlling the future prospects of your team.

However, the original gameplay of F1 Manager 2024 has not changed much from the previous versions, even with these additions. Everything about sessions remains unchanged. Race management has remained mostly the same, and sliders are essential for car configurations. From a visual standpoint, the game isn't distinct from F1 Manager 2023.

 

Although AI hasn't improved much, there have been some noteworthy advances off the track. The top drivers and personnel on a team are harder to recruit than in the past. A new level of difficulty has emerged as teams strive to retain their staff by providing them with good compensation and a positive work environment.

The absence of sophisticated AI was a major complaint leveled against earlier versions. However, the F1 Manager 2024's AI seems to be getting better at making decisions from race to race. The game now makes it more realistic for drivers to recover from spinouts, so it's not the end of the race if they do. When it comes to tactics using rain, the AI is well ahead of the game.

The AI varies the length of time it spends on tires, and anticipating future weather adjustments. While this could add some difficulty to the race, it is a significant improvement over the previous installments, when the AI would essentially hope for a better result if it began to rain.

The Affiliate system is one of the many appealing new features in F1 Manager 2024. Each club may have up to ten affiliates committed to them under this structure, which is meant for talent acquisition. Affiliates can start their racing career in F2 or F3, but they can also go behind the wheel of an F1 vehicle for practice sessions, which will give them even more experience and help them progress.

Your affiliates gain from your facilities as they get a cut of the incentives you provide. As an affiliate, you have the opportunity to help a talent hone their abilities by designating a particular area of attention. Motivated affiliates will see quicker growth, highlighting the importance of mindset in this system.

A new difficulty level is added to F1 Manager 2024 with the addition of mechanical problems, and a few additional improvements to the overall experience are carried about by some smaller tweaks.
 

Factors including high temperatures, wear, and crashing over curbs may cause mechanical failures ranging from minor to catastrophic. Ignoring little problems may cause them to grow into significant ones, and ignoring major ones can cause terminal damage, which will force you to retire.

The vehicle's data will show you the likelihood of problems, so you can weigh the risks and benefits and make informed choices. There has been an improvement in the handling of turns and more aggressive overtaking into them. When drivers strive to press one another for an advantage, the races become more intense and dynamic.

The option to practice racing scenarios is a great new feature. Making short work of a season is now simpler than ever with this useful feature. Improved broadcast camera views, including cable camera pictures on specific circuits, and a new camera viewpoint called the HeliCam have been included.

Along with better graphics for racing lines and the addition of realistic racing elements like pebbles to the track, other improvements include faster recovery after an incident and improved visuals for racing lines overall. While the graphics are an upgrade over last year's game, there are a lot of major drawbacks. For one, the racing seems somewhat unreal, much as in the previous year's game, which makes it unclear whether the mechanics were improved or not.

There are several instances when the cars merge into one another, and the overtaking animations are rather distracting. The game's representations are lacking, and it's difficult to discern any gameplay improvements compared to the original F1 Manager.

Furthermore, it is completely absurd to be able to adjust fuel economy without being able to see the amount on board; the team leader has to own all the data, not only a wild assumption about fuel saving and pushing.
 

Considering it's a management simulation game, F1 Manager 2024 does a good job. The visuals, in particular, look good when the race is underway. It takes a whole other league when compared to other management simulations and is more balanced in general. Though the game puts you on occasion at a rate that real life rarely does, not very often, anyhow.

F1 enthusiasts won't like it much, even though the game-like experience is enhanced by the abundance of different situations. For instance, you may get a message informing you that your factory caught fire, which would need you to spend some resources and will also halt the manufacture of components or the creation of new ones.

However, you can replace some components of the cars without incident as often as if you participated in a race. Contract negotiations, AI for drivers, complexity, and a few more things still need adjustments in their approach.

The Create A Team mode and the expanded sponsor interactions are two of the most anticipated new features and upgrades that F1 Manager 2024 brings to the table. Fans have been requesting these additions and improvements for quite some time. The game's complexity and realism have been enhanced with the inclusion of the mindset mechanic and better AI.

Having said that, the visuals are quite comparable to earlier versions, and the gameplay is mostly intact. The inclusion of Create A Team makes this year's release an important companion to the season for Formula One fans. But if you're hoping for a whole new game, you could become bored with the same old mechanics.

In the end, the Create A Team mode was the only feature that made me like F1 Manager 2024 since there weren't many changes from the previous version. Building your own team and racing it around the track is a great new feature, and the new mode is a lot of fun to boot.

The experience is improved overall by the additional features, which provide a new level of planning and personalization. There is room for development in the series, including the addition of replay features for previous races and the correction of a few small bugs in this year's installment. Those who like management simulation games or are fans of the series will surely love it. 
 

Azfar Rayan (@AzfarRayan)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed