F1 24 Driver Career preview: A staple mode gets an overdue overhaul

By far the driest chuckles, among those present for a sneak preview of F1 24, came at the mention of “secret meetings,” a new wrinkle that Codemasters is using to add flavor to an even bigger overhaul to its Driver Career mode. After all, we just saw a whopper of a secret meeting back in January, when seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton announced he would leave Mercedes to drive for Ferrari next year.

It’s the kind of soap opera story arc that F1 fans find so titillating, even when it’s the off-season, that has been largely missing from the video game series’ otherwise deep driver career mode. Internal friction was condensed to a linear beat-your-teammate rivalry; you led the development of your car whether you were the team’s first or second driver, and contract negotiations ended in jarring mid-season changes or didn’t pose much challenge to extracting the best deal out of a cagey team principal.

If all goes as promised, that will change in F1 24’s new Career, which has been overdue for a big upgrade considering it’s been a bread-and-butter mode for 15 years. More recently, Codemasters has introduced new features like a captivating My Team, which allows users to create their fictitious team and drive for it, or F1 World, which is more of an online career that unifies the game’s multiplayer, Grand Prix, and Time Trials modes.

Good ol’ Driver Career last saw a big update when Codemasters introduced a co-operative/competitive option with another friend as either a teammate or a rival in another car. That was in 2021, and even then the mode’s linear development, rote free agency, and lack of sports tabloid sizzle have been the same for nearly a decade.

Creative director Lee Mather pointed out that the last big refresh of Driver Career came in F1 2016, as if to assure fans Codemasters was aware the mode had waited too long while innovations like a narrative, F1 World, and My Team joined the game.

“Career is where the true authenticity and Formula One season really shows through,” Mather said. “And that’s why this year, we felt was the most appropriate time to do a new driver career in F1 24.”

For starters, fans will now be able to play a career mode as an existing driver. I was taken aback to realize this has never been an option since the last big overhaul in F1 2016. But that’s because I always played as my created avatar and assumed others did the same thing, too, finding that type of fantasy competition more appealing.

Boy was I wrong. You can find fans complaining about this rather consistently. “We want the players to be able to play the way that they want to play,” Mather said, acknowledging the feedback. Driver avatars are still there for those who prefer that, “but now you can also play as one of your F1 heroes,” Mather said.

“You can choose one of the drivers from the existing Formula 1 roster,” Mather said, “a Formula 2 driver, or one of the icons,” which are all-time greats who usually show up as premium or deluxe edition content.

#F124's tyre physics have undergone significant changes, both in the dry and the wet