Codemasters and EA are back for another year of Formula One madness with this year’s title, F1 23. MKAU was lucky enough to get our hands on a preview build of the game, and even in early access, it looks and plays amazingly. It’s the sixteenth Formula One game Codemasters has been involved in, and each year the title gets better and better. F1 23 is the official game of the 2023 Formula One Championship.

Saying I’m surprised is an understatement. Being able to get a hands-on preview of a game, you would expect some minor bugs and other things, but I did not encounter these, which made the game so much nicer to play. Each year, people say there is another F1 game coming out, and each year, they blow the title out of the water with the amount of content and improvements made. 

Codemasters have listened to what the people want, and the people wanted 35% Race Distance, so that has also been thrown into this year’s title, which offers a perfect balance. The race is not too short and not too long, but it’s long enough, and you still need to think about fuel and tyre wear, which makes the strategy behind racing all the more immersive. I was able to check this out on a variety of circuits, including Miami, Great Britain, Bahrain, and Imola.

Making a comeback like previous years is the Grand Prix game mode, for those who want the full experience of racing in the Formula One series. You go from practice to qualifying, to the big race, and if you are doing the full weekend, you want to make sure you get some time up your sleeve, but needless to say, the Grand Prix mode is always a fun game mode for Formula One fans. The one difference I found with this year’s title was that everything felt a little more fine-tuned, and it felt like it ran a little bit smoother, both in the pits and whilst on the track.

If you are competitive behind the wheel, want to set those fastest lap times, and get some recognition for doing them, Time Trial is designed just for you. It’s not a game mode I’d normally play, just for the fact I can’t throw the cars around the track quick enough, and it’s once a blue moon that I even win the races, but it’s certainly one of the most competitive modes gamers can take part in. Time Trial has been in the games for as long as I can remember, and it will forever be a fan-favorite game mode. 

There is a new feature this year called Precision Drive, which has given more power and more control to players using a controller. It’s a complete controller tech rewrite that has given more response in those crucial moments when you need it. I played a fair bit with this feature in the preview, and it’s something that you can really feel the difference in gameplay, which has always been a downfall in using a controller compared to a wheel. You generally feel like you have more response and more time with the wheel, but with this new system implemented, you feel like you are completely in control of the vehicle, and you feel more in tune with the car.

The developers also used real F1 team feedback on how the vehicles handle and are controlled, which has also improved the gameplay so much more this year, and to think, it’s still only a preview build. You feel like you have more traction and more control when hitting the brakes while coming into the corner a little faster than you should. With the new aerodynamic scheme implemented last year in the 2022 season, you can really feel the cars come to life in this year’s title, which was great from a racing standpoint. 

The controls have been completely dialed in now, but it doesn’t just come down to what controls you are using. Thanks to refined handling and physics, the car feels more authentic and you feel like you have more control over it. Everything runs exactly how you would expect in real life, which was something that immersed me further into races. It felt like I was properly behind the wheel winning races as either Hamilton or Verstappen.

Like previous years, the controller setup is much the same for default control users, and if you are new to the series, I would recommend doing some “Quick Races” to familiarize yourself with the vehicles and the controls before going for gold as there is a lot to learn. Compared to previous years, the cars feel like they stick to the ground better and you have more control over how it’s handling, and if you throw it over a corner, you feel it. There was no delay when wanting to put the car in a certain position, which was great when you are throwing it through a chicane at 200 kilometers an hour or even quicker. 

There is more to Formula One games than the amazing sounds that come out of the vehicles, which I’m not going to take away from as Formula One cars have and always will sound amazing. You have your pit crew talking to you while you are flying around the track, or the crowd making noise as you fly up the pit straight. The game is so immersive in that aspect.  

VR has made its way into our living rooms more times than ever before, and you can now sit down, put on your VR headset, and fully immerse yourself in the Formula One world. There is a long list of VR headsets that are supported, but unfortunately. I don’t own VR, so I could not test this feature. It’s something I might need to look into. Being able to look around the cockpit of a Formula One car is something that would be ideal for my racing career. 

There was not one moment where I did not love the graphics in this year’s title. Year after year I comment on how far graphics have come and that it surely could not get better. Codemasters have absolutely blown it out of the park with this year’s title, and it’s hard to understand that we got our hands on a preview build with how beautiful it is. Everything was so dialed in, and for the first time, I can say the environment around the track looked realistic. They’ve done this by implementing a new colour encoding system, the same style used in film and TV, and lighting improvements help to provide the near-real experience F1 23 now offers. 

I’m keen to get my hands on the full copy of Codemasters’ F1 23 and throw some laps around as my favorite racers. Considering this is a preview version several weeks behind the actual development, it’s looking to be very promising for fans and newcomers alike.

Written by: Hayden Nelson