F1 Manager 2024 deep dive with game developers: What can we expect?

Frontier Developments is back with another addition to their F1 Manager franchise. The F1 strategy game will be released on July 23, and players will be returning to the role of team principal. Frontier has again bolstered its franchise, with a range of new features for this year’s edition. Before its release, GPblog sat down with Art Director Matt Dickinson and Executive Producer Stuart Warren to learn more about the game before its much-anticipated release.

Do you have good relationships with the teams and Formula One directly? And then if so, have they helped you in any way to develop the game?

MD: "It's a good question. It's an F1-licensed product. So we talk to F1 on a weekly basis and email them on a daily basis. So, there's obviously a load of F1 data that's in the game. The teams sign off all of the assets that go into the game. There's information exchanged about upcoming issues that we may or may not need to be aware of. Changes are going to be made to try and make sure that everything is fully aligned. So F1 is really passionate about all of their products and how they can make sure that they're adhering to the many licensing agreements that exist inside F1, just in terms of, sponsorship representation and everything else. It's a really positive relationship, the fact that we're able to work so quickly to sort of create a lot of the stuff that we do and have access to that data earlier in the season than the general public will make sure that we can do the job we need to do."

SW: "Beyond the licenses as well, just to add to that, the design team, for example, when they're coming up with these new ideas and building out new features for the game, that'll often surface questions that we don't necessarily have the answers to as to how something might work behind the scenes. But we'll put those to our partners in F1 and we'll get their feedback and input on those to try and make the features as authentic as possible. And then with something like affiliate drivers this year, the depth of that is really in many ways dependent on those relationships because we want the teams to come on board with us and talk to us about their affiliates and their teams that we can then put into the game and have represented. So it goes a really long way."

Matt, you just mentioned that you've got a lot of data that you're going to be able to take into the simulation. So how important is that when developing the next generation of the game compared to the previous generations?

MD: "I think there's kind of two parts of that. There are forums and Reddit and all the other places where people talk about the game to get a flavour of what people are thinking about. So there's this kind of direct thing where people are mentioning things and we're trying to understand what it is they want. It's not always like, just do this. It's understanding what the implication of that in the game is, how that makes something the better game, and what the levers we have to pull are, also correlating our internal feelings. So obviously we start the game. We started this game almost before the other game was out. So we can't just do everything based on player feedback. There's a core set. Visions and beliefs are mapped out and built around. But at the same time, we need to correlate that with the general feeling. We understand the language we should use when we talk to the community and hopefully, the way we engage with the community. That kind of bears out that we're very mindful of what they enjoy. That's what we're trying to do, we're like them, we're fans of F1, too. We want this to be the best, most accurate F1 game there is."

Were mechanical failures something hard to implement and how much jeopardy do you think that will add for the players playing it this year?

MD: "I think we had like a slightly different system last year in terms of how where rake affected performance and this is a huge overhaul of that. I think from our point of view it was always important that the word it's branded as mechanical failures and failure has quite a negative connotation because you feel intrinsically like, oh, my car's broken what do I do about it? I can't nip out and fix it on the track so I think what's always been kind of front and center is making sure that actually what it's doing is mixing up the races. There are nine other teams or ten other teams if you're playing create a team mode on the grid so that means actually 90 per cent of the time more often than not you have a situation someone else is going through that you can capitalize on, so I think again, if you look at the great F1 races of the past it's always when that unexpected has happened and everything's mixed up, suddenly all the strategies are out the window and you've got to think on your feet. Do I stop now? Is this car going to stop on track? what's going to happen now?"

SW: "It's a really nice example of what Matt spoke about earlier because this was one that the community was really keen on, but it's important to consider all that Matt said and make sure you put it in the right way so it's enjoyable to engage with it and is additive to the game so that that's a nice piece and we can as you'd expect with any of the racing elements of the game. It's balanced, and true to life so we're not going to be throwing 10 times more mechanical faults here just because it's a new feature. It’s balanced, true to life both for the AI teams and the human teams."

Drivers and team members obviously have different ratings again. How hard is it for you guys to kind of work out these ratings? And of course, you'll get stick for them. But how do you guys as a team work that out?

MD: "That's a good question! There's a process that we've kind of refined, I think, from the first game onwards, that allows us to take real-world F1 data from the races. In almost all cases, wherever possible, because F1 is a data-driven sport, there's data about something, whether it's about staff, drivers, a particular corner, number of safety cars, how much rain there is on the track, etc. So we try as much as possible to use that data. And we've done it again with the mentality system to turn that data into something in the game. So we're not sitting there fiddling things because this is what we think. We're using the real-world data and putting it out there. So it's based on that kind of real-world situation and real-world data out there as much as possible because that's accurate and it's hopefully nonsubjective from a data point of view."

If you could sum up to a new player why should they buy and play F1 Manager 24, what would you both say?

MD: "I think from my point of view it is the most in-depth realistic F1 management game. if you want to live and breathe the life of a team principal, build a team, and make decisions, this is the game for you and it allows you to live out that dream."

SW: "If you've ever watched an f1 race and you've sat there screaming at the TV because you don't agree with a decision that's been made, you know this game puts you in that position where you can prove that right."

F1 Manager 24 releases on July 23 on PC, PlayStation and Xbox for a suggested retail price of £29.99/$34.99/€34.99.

Watch the trailer here: