F1 25: Racing into the Future with a Cinematic Edge
Formula One just hit its 75th season, and yeah, it’s had a few shake-ups. Codemasters and EA SPORTS just dropped F1 25, and it’s fully in sync with the latest changes—plus it’s got connections to that upcoming F1 movie with Brad Pitt. If you’re a fan, it’s definitely worth checking out where you can buy games like this at a good price. When the series made the jump to next-gen consoles, hype was high. Everyone thought we were about to see a major glow-up. Five years later though, we’re still riding with the same old EGO engine, and the game’s leaned hard into a story mode that's clearly made for fans who got into F1 through that Netflix doc. F1 25 doesn’t break a ton of new ground, but the car handling? Easily the cleanest it’s ever been. Let’s be real—F1 would still be the biggest racing series on the planet even without the Drive to Survive effect. But once that hit? Every other motorsport started chasing the formula. Literally everyone’s trying it now. Even MotoGP is getting in on the action with a doc about Marc Marquez. A few years back, Codemasters saw the wave and kicked off Braking Point to reel in those new fans Netflix brought in. Now we’re on Braking Point 3, and the story’s gone way deeper than just Aiden Jackson vs. Drake Butler drama. Rumor has it the new F1 movie is pulling inspo straight from this arc, but we’ll see when it drops. It’s wild—Netflix sparks a doc, that inspires a game story, which might’ve inspired a movie, which then circles back into the game. Call it content crossover chaos, but it's working. F1 just keeps getting bigger.
Family Feud Fuels the Racing Drama
Braking Point 3 kicks off with a quick recap of Braking Point 2, since it skipped last year’s game entirely. Now Davidoff Butler, Drake Butler’s dad, owns Konnersport and instantly gives off major micromanage energy. What started as a simple driver rivalry has evolved into a full-on family drama with the Butler clan running the show. The vibe this time? Surprisingly dark. But instead of letting the emotional beats breathe, the game keeps throwing major plot twists back-to-back. Davidoff makes a weird phone call, then suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances... and Callie’s mom just casually calls during a race? Realistically, someone like Davidoff would’ve been at the race or had the event shut down. But hey, it’s story mode logic. We’re three entries in, and the whole narrative has definitely shifted. The rivalry between Aiden Jackson and Drake Butler is no longer center stage. Now it’s all about Konnersport and its chaos. Callie steps up as the main focus, with gameplay occasionally flipping between her and Aiden—who honestly just feels like he's there because he has to be. Meanwhile, Drake goes from neutral team principal to full-blown villain arc, trying to channel his dad’s energy. Plot swings come fast, usually interrupted by dramatic phone calls, like clockwork. Gameplay-wise, you’re dropped into key moments of the 2024 season, mainly following Konnersport trying to square up against Red Bull. Oddly, there’s zero interaction between the Konnersport squad and any other team on the grid. You get interviews that influence headlines in the menu, and social media posts you can read but not engage with. It’s kind of a closed loop.
Too Easy, Even for Verstappen?
F1 24’s handling model? Yeah, a lot of people weren’t vibing with it. The devs brought in Max Verstappen for feedback, and it kinda ended up feeling like they made the game as easy as he makes race day look. Cars were sliding around without consequence, barely spinning out. It felt like realism took the backseat. F1 25, though? Huge upgrade. It might actually hit the sweet spot for both controller players (especially on a DualSense) and wheel users. Running no assists with a solid setup like the Fanatec Gran Turismo DD feels close to perfect. That said, the default force feedback is a little much out of the box, so you’ll want to tweak it. It’s still not full sim territory, but it leans way more in that direction than previous years. You can actually get sideways, curbs will punish you if you take them wrong, and wheel hop is 100% a thing. Finding the balance between grip and chaos feels super rewarding, and F1 25 nails that. If you mess up, it’s on you — not the game. And the rewind feature? Lifesaver for getting through that learning curve. The cars stay planted, but it’s the tire model that really shows up this year. With traction control set to medium, you’ve still got to pay attention — you can catch the car in certain moments, but it won’t babysit you. Go too aggressive through a slow corner or botch your exit, and yeah, you’re probably spinning. The tire feedback and rear-end feel with a wheel is top-tier. But honestly, the controller experience kind of slaps too. The DualSense haptics and adaptive triggers give you legit feedback on grip loss, and that alone might make this the best car handling physics the series has had.
Gridlock and AI Frustrations
Race starts? Straight-up chaos. Avoiding front wing damage feels like a miracle because the whole grid slams the brakes at once and stacks up like it's rush hour in a parking lot. Try diving to the inside, and the AI just acts like you don’t exist. Honestly, the AI and overall race experience haven’t leveled up at all. Same clunky speech-to-text menu, same generic engineer responses, and the pit entry system? Still the exact one from a few years ago. Tire data could definitely use more context too. Right now, it's like, cool — my tires are wearing — but give me something more useful than that. And yeah, somehow the DRS bug from last year is still a thing. You pass a car and boom, DRS is active when it shouldn’t be. This isn’t some new rule in real F1. It's just a glitch that's still hanging around, and with how big eSports is for this game, stuff like this creates a totally unfair edge in tight races. Load times are also all over the place. Sometimes it drags for no clear reason, and it might be tied to server stuff? Which, for an offline race, makes no sense at all. Either way, for a game still running on the aging EGO engine and installed on fast hardware like NVMe drives, these load times are just not it.
My Team Mode Gets a Strategic Overhaul
Codemasters didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel with F1 25’s modes, but they did sprinkle in a few quality updates. Braking Point 3 clearly got most of the attention, but My Team got a solid little glow-up that longtime fans will appreciate. You can now either run the team as an owner or just pick a driver and focus on racing. Swapping drivers for race weekends is a thing now too, which adds a bit of flexibility. If you go full owner mode, you’re managing R&D, operations, and driver lineups for next season. It’s definitely deeper than before and honestly, it’s a change this mode desperately needed to keep things interesting. You can upgrade everything from facilities to staff, and Accolades from Career Mode have been carried over into My Team. Even the AI can sign Icon drivers now, which is kinda wild. Brad Pitt’s movie character is available too, but grabbing two Icons will absolutely drain your in-game wallet. My Team 2.0 doesn’t flip the formula, but all the smaller tweaks make it feel more complete, especially if you’re into the whole team management vibe. F1 World is still hanging around as the home base for anything that isn’t Braking Point, My Team, or Career Mode. It’s where online races happen, but the layout is still a bit of a mess. New this year are multiplayer Invitationals and more ways to customize your car for both online and offline modes. You’ve got ranked matchmaking and lobbies, but on launch day, none of it worked. Hopefully that’s just early release growing pains. One thing fans keep asking about but still haven’t gotten: classic cars and tracks. Still missing. The supercars they added a few years ago? Quietly getting phased out too. On the bright side, there are more decal and livery tools now, including title sponsor liveries, but let’s be real — only a small slice of the player base actually messes with those. Career Mode is still here, giving you the choice to either step into a current F1 driver’s shoes or build your own from scratch, same as usual. Nothing game-changing, but still solid.
LIDAR Tech Boosts Track Realism—But Only on Five Circuits
For F1 25, Codemasters finally jumped on the LIDAR train, using laser scans to make tracks feel way more true to life. Other racing games have been doing this for a while, so it’s about time. It’s a big W for realism, but here’s the catch — only five out of the 24 tracks actually got the upgrade this year. Bahrain, Miami, Melbourne, Suzuka, and Imola made the cut. Miami’s still pretty new and Melbourne’s had layout changes, so those make sense. Probably a mix of time and access issues, but it’s safe to assume more tracks will get scanned down the line. The real surprise this year? Reverse tracks. It’s giving flashbacks to when they added supercars — totally unexpected, kinda random, but cool. Right now, it’s limited to just three circuits: Red Bull Ring, Silverstone, and Zandvoort. Thankfully, those choices actually work well in reverse thanks to their flow. You can race them in Grand Prix, Time Trials, Multiplayer, and Career Mode.
Tested on both PS5 and PS5 Pro, and yeah, the Pro definitely gives F1 25 that much-needed facelift. On the base PS5, the game still kinda looks like it's stuck in 2020. Environments, player models, car details — just not hitting the mark. But once you’re on the PS5 Pro with Ray Tracing on, the difference is clear. The lighting during races actually pops, and overall image quality is way sharper. That said, the PC version is clearly where most of the visual upgrades are landing. We’re talking Path Tracing and even 8K support. The wild part? The base specs are still super chill — a GTX 1060 to run the game, and only an RTX 2070 recommended for 1080p at 60 FPS on high settings. Props to the EGO engine for still leveling up, but consoles definitely aren’t getting the same glow-up PC players are seeing.
Great Cutscenes, But Player Models Lag Behind
Player models still feel stuck in the past. Everyone’s the same height, and even with the new facial expression tech, they don’t exactly impress. The cutscenes in Braking Point 3 look amazing, no doubt — but once it cuts back to gameplay, the drop in visual quality is hard to ignore. That’s the EGO Engine showing its age. The newer hardware gives the game more room to breathe, but visually, it’s just not keeping up with what other racing games are pulling off. Codemasters claims there’s improved lighting and better foliage, but the trees still look kinda copy-paste and the lighting only really hits different if you’ve got ray tracing turned on — like on the PS5 Pro. On the audio side, though, they nailed it. The voice dialogue has been doubled and now covers qualifying too. Car sounds are still on point — always have been — and the voice acting in Braking Point 3 holds up. The game also drops in a bunch of modern EDM tracks and an upgraded in-house soundtrack that pretty much fits any vibe. The expanded dialogue helps sell that live race day energy, and yeah, it’s strong — but hearing some actual in-race commentary would take it even further. Still, with the full commentary crew showing up, that broadcast-style feel is definitely there.
F1 25: Handling Finally Hits the Sweet Spot
Codemasters absolutely nailed the handling in F1 25. No matter if you’re running full assists or going raw with a racing wheel, the physics feel dialed in. Go no assists on a proper setup and you're getting one of the most legit takes on F1 the series has ever delivered. Compared to last year, it's a massive upgrade. It’s tough, it’s rewarding, and it actually lets skill gaps show — fast players will be noticeably faster. Beyond that, though, a lot of the game still feels familiar. LIDAR tracks and reverse layouts are cool touches, but there aren’t enough of them to really make an impact yet. Braking Point 3 brings a surprisingly dark vibe to story mode, which will hit for players who want more than just pure racing. And My Team 2.0 finally gives the mode a deeper managerial feel — a definite W for anyone into the behind-the-scenes grind. But at the end of the day, if all you care about is racing, F1 25 delivers. The core driving experience is the best it’s ever been, and that’s what matters most.