F1 25 geht am 30. Mai an den Start

The annual FIA Formula One World Championship isn’t complete without its accompanying game from legendary UK studio Codemasters. EA SPORTS F1 25 is heading to PC and consoles on May 30th, the day Practice begins for the Spanish Grand Prix, the ninth fixture on this season’s global lineup. For us mere mortals who won’t make it to Barcelona for the race—or to any of the other races, let’s be honest—F1 25 is without doubt the closest we can get. In terms of the richness of experience on offer, it could be argued that the game offers far more than you’ll ever get trackside… unless you’re buddies with Max Verstappen. Intel Gaming Access walked the pit lane with Gavin Cooper, Creative Director on the F1 series at Codemasters, to soak up some of the high-octane sights and sounds heading our way in F1 25.

As Formula 1 celebrates its 75th anniversary, and the 2025 season promises to deliver one of the most dramatic seasons of the sport in recent memory, F1 25 invites players to immerse themselves ever deeper in the fantasy of their own, custom F1 experience. “If there was one fundamental thread running throughout F1 25 I’d say it was ‘race your way’,” Cooper says. “Whether it’s the narrative of Braking Point, or creating your own team identity with our new customization tools and building your story through our My Team career mode. And it’s an experience that everyone can enjoy, regardless of level of skill, or knowledge of the sport.”

On the story side, the game unveils the third chapter in the series’ Braking Point arc, which offers its own ways for players to leave their tire marks on the narrative. “While Braking Point is, at its core, a linear narrative experience, each time we revisit it, we look for ways to give players more agency,” says Cooper. “This time, players choose which driver they want to play at key events, which gives them different perspectives on the story, and influences how elements of the story come to a conclusion.” It may be a third chapter, but Braking Point requires no pre-reading. “Braking Point has always been a natural first stop for new players, [but] we know how many of our veteran players also enjoy the mode, hence us adding a new difficulty level at the top end,” says Cooper. “That’s also allowed us to shift around the existing difficulty levels, ensuring players across the board will be better able to find a level appropriate to their skill.” 

The F1 25 Career mode has also been given a thorough tune-up. “Our big revamp of My Team gives players an all-new backdrop for those player stories, centred around the role of Team Owner,” Cooper explains. “Central to My Team is the creation of your team identity, and the changes we’ve made to car customization this year let players craft a visual identity for that team that’s closer than ever to those of the real teams.” Accessible-to-all is a core message with F1 25, but Codemasters is equally keen to ensure the Career mode is plenty challenging when more seasoned hands are on the wheel. 

The My Team revamp in F1 25 also introduces extensive optional tutorials, a virtual manual to help players get into the systems, facility head characters to act as friendly guides, and the option of automating certain gameplay systems like research and development.

Of course, no new F1 game would be complete without plenty of tinkering under the hood of the cars themselves, not to mention the tracks. “There have been a number of enhancements to the handling and AI this year, which in tandem with our LIDAR updates for Miami, Melbourne, Suzuka, Imola, and Bahrain help to deliver a dramatically improved on-track experience,” says Cooper. “And further to the LIDAR stuff, we’re offering three reverse tracks: Austria, Silverstone and Zandvoort. These give you the chance to enjoy these tracks in a whole new way.”  

And there’s more. Real driver audio has been expanded in F1 25, with the pool of lines almost double compared to F1 24, and you can now hear them in qualifying, as well as the main race. And then there’s the new Team Icons system that lets you add a fictional team as the 11th team in either of the game’s career modes, with a choice of either Konnersport from Braking Point or APXGP from the upcoming movie F1: The Movie (for players who pre-order the Iconic Edition). 

On the subject of F1: The Movie, owners of the Iconic Edition of F1 25 will be able to access a range of scenarios in-game based on the film, all of which is planned for release post-launch on June 30 to coincide with the movie launch. These scenarios are based on the Braking Point event structure and bring the action to life by cutting between on-track gameplay and footage from the movie itself. 

Phew! Is that it? Of course it isn’t. “All this is really just scratching the surface; there’s really a lot in there,” assures Cooper. For instance, there’s plenty of other content in the pipeline for after release. “One area in which players will benefit post-launch is how we’ll manage special edition liveries over the course of the 2025 season,” Cooper continues. “Each year a number of teams deliver special liveries for key Grands Prix, and while we’ve reflected some in the past, the way in which we’ve done so this year has been improved.” In F1 25, you get a separate inventory of special edition liveries, which you can access in any context where you’re using an official team. That means you can use these liveries completely at your discretion in Driver Career, something that wasn’t possible before.

Naturally, as everything happens at literally breakneck speed in the world of F1 25, performance matters—as does respect for PC players. “The F1 development team has always prided itself on the performance of the game,” Cooper affirms. “A lot of our audience are PC gamers, and we always work hard to give them the best experience possible, supporting a wide variety of hardware from budget-oriented to top of the range. PC gamers invest a lot into their setups, and we try to ensure they get the best from their investment with the highest frame rates coupled with the best quality.”

F1 25 fans playing on PC will get their hands on some extra-special new tricks this time round. “This year, our PC players will be able to experience a top-level version of our game, thanks to an emerging PC-exclusive innovation we introduced called Path Tracing,” continues Cooper. “This is essentially an upgraded form of ray tracing which—along with other improvements to lighting, shadows, and the circuits overall—will deliver a much more realistic representation of the environment. If you have a PC capable of experiencing it, Path Tracing is the most realistic simulation of light on track that we’ve ever delivered.”

Codemasters and Intel have collaborated to bring the best possible experience to players of F1 25, but it’s not their first rodeo together. “We were pleased to be able to support the global launch of the Battlemage cards and integrate IntelⓇ Xe Super Sampling 2 into F1 24 in December last year,” says Cooper. “We’ve worked with the team at Intel over a number of years to make sure that all our titles are taking advantage of the latest innovations in CPU and GPU technologies.”

“Racing games, and especially one as high-speed as ours with such lush and rich environments, pose unique technical challenges to all upscalers and frame-generation technologies, and place high burdens on GPUs and CPUs,” Cooper explains. “It’s why we’re always delighted to be featured as a benchmark title for new hardware, and our partners like to dig deep into our EGO game engine to test their latest algorithms and techniques. In turn, the Intel team is generous with its time and insight and helps us to optimize and improve our engine for each release.”

Some of the optimizations achieved through the collaboration are very specific. “During the development of F1 25, we worked closely with Intel to identify some significant gains for users on integrated hardware, such as handhelds like the Intel-powered MSI Claw and the latest IntelⓇ ARCTM-enabled processor families,” Cooper says. “Whilst not always glamorous, getting deep into unified memory architectures, processor affinity balancing, and optimizing things like variable-rate shading with the knowledgeable and committed Intel team helps us to serve customers across all levels of hardware.” 

“Whether chasing frame-rates or optimising for battery life, we want our players to be able to write their story for F1, and being able to adapt and meet them on their hardware is really important to us,” Cooper continues. “The Intel team shares that passion for their customers, and making sure that our partnership in delivering the best F1 game possible on Intel hardware continues to be mutually satisfying.”

And with that comprehensive rundown of the treats PC players can look forward to with F1 25, Cooper ushers us out of the pit lane with a final nod to the near future. “We’re always working on something at the Codemasters studio, but right now we are really looking forward to the launch of F1 25,” he says. “We can’t wait for the game to be in our players’ hands!”

Pre-purchase F1 25 on Steam