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0🥺F1 22Hands-on: The most important new features in F1 22Avatar
ByTraxionPosted on May 9, 2022Hands-on - The most important new features in F1 22
By Oasley Beattie and Thomas Harrison-Lord
It’s that time of the year again, folks. Spring is in the air, football competitions are ending and the motorsport season is in full swing – including Formula 1. With the opening rounds now complete, the traditional reveal of this year’s associated video game is an anticipated inevitability.
Having been hands-on with the work in progress PC-build version of the now entitled EA SPORTS F1 22 we can safely say this: It’s another Formula 1 game that is fun to drive, rewarding and, perhaps at this stage, a little all-too-familiar.
F1 22 game podium celebration
To be clear, we were able to drive all current 2022 cars within Grand Prix and Time Trial modes. The tracks on offer included the all-new Miami International Autodrome, plus Imola, Silverstone, Circuit of the Americas and the Red Bull Ring.
Vaunted new additions such as F1 Life – including road-based supercars – updated track layouts and My Team managerial mode refinements were detailed, but not playable at this stage.
Here, then, are what we think are the most significant changes to the F1 gaming series this year, and our take on their progress.
F1 22 Red Bull Ring, Charles Leclerc
THE SPRINT FORMAT
Sprints have appeared in F1 weekends four times now and are being evaluated for six potential appearances within the 2023 calendar. They feature qualifying on a Friday evening, preceding the second practice session, before a sprint event on Saturday to set the grid for Sunday’s race.
Regardless of your opinion on the sprint format, the F1 22 game now contains this option, a feature notable only by its absence in last year’s F1 2021 release. Unlike the real world, however, they can appear on any circuit of your choice.
The weekend structure now has three options to choose from: Standard, Authentic and Sprint & Race.
F1 22 game, Imola, sprint
The first option features a practice, qualifying and race event, whereas the other two contain a sprint in-between the qualifying and race events. The difference between the two is that Authentic only applies to those that do contain sprint events in real life this season – Imola, Austria and Interlagos.
The Sprint & Race option enables a sprint at any circuit on the calendar.
Changing the session length setting also affects the number of required laps within sprints. For example, choosing short will only require five laps in a sprint and choosing long will reduce the normal sprint length to 50 per cent.
A long sprint at Austria for example would contain 12 laps instead of the full 24 laps, for example.
GOODBYE JEFF
Since Adam Rhys Dee voiced your race engineer – first in F1 2010 and then as Jeff in F1 2015 onwards – we’ve all been screaming at him to leave us alone because we know what to do.
With F1 22 however, the original voice artist has been replaced by Marc “Elvis” Priestley, an ex-Formula 1 mechanic who worked with McLaren from 1999 to 2009 alongside drivers such as Hamilton, Alonso, Raikkonen, Button and Hakkinen.
His focus after F1 shifted into media, eventually becoming a presenter on Wheeler Dealers in 2021.
As previewed in a teaser trailer, he now voices your race engineer.
Marc Priestley aka F1 Elvis speaks to Ted Kravitz, F1 Spain Testing 2013 - Sutton Images, Motorsport Images
Marc Priestley aka F1 Elvis speaks to Ted Kravitz, F1 Spain Testing 2013 – Sutton Images, Motorsport Images
The delivered lines are fairly similar to the previous years, but we noticed several new lines. Maybe we were too harsh on Jeff, and that forced him to seek out other roles within the F1 game universe?
Either way, there’s now a new voice to complain to. I hope you know what you have signed up for Marc, we’ll try not to be too mean…
YOU CAN CHANGE PUNDITRY
Speaking of voice talent, a very small – but welcome – update is the ability to change between your preferred commentators.
in our testing and even better, across any game mode. If you’re the sort of masochist that would like to take part in a full-length online race around a wet Monaco in VR, you can. Likewise, the My Team and Driver Career modes.
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