Q1 22: Real-time updates bring you more realism, what does that mean for the future?

Real-time updates are one of the new features in F1 22. Or let’s put it this way, it’s a feature that was already there to some extent and has been further developed. And it should be even more prominent in the future, similar to a live service game.

I recently spoke to Codemasters’ Senior Creative Director Lee Mather about what the real-time updates mean for F1 22 and the future of the series.

So far in the season we have already seen track adjustments in Spain and Australia. How early do you get access to these planned changes and what exactly does that process look like?

Lee Mather: This sometimes varies significantly depending on what changes were made to the track and what happened. An example from the past would be when we were designing Zandvoort and a curve was added. That was a pretty late decision. So we found out about it when Formula 1 decided it. As for Melbourne, Barcelona and Abu Dhabi, these were obviously done last year, but by then we were well into the development of the next game.

So we pushed them to this year and they’re in F1 22. We have a pretty good overview of it, but of course we never know 100% what the tracks will look like until they are rebuilt. We get CAD data for all changes and whenever possible we always try to get real data if that is possible at the time. But as long as the routes have not been rebuilt, this is of course not feasible.

How long does it take you to modify a virtual track accordingly?

Lee Mather: The construction of a complete route takes about a year of work. Again, it depends on the scope of the changes. If the changes also involve changes in height then placing the objects around them becomes even more complex because then they will naturally float and so on and so forth. I really can’t give you a specific time frame.

The producer has to think about such things. But any kind of track change matters because it’s not just about the actual visuals of the track, it’s also about the AI. She needs to know that the curves are where they are. She needs to know what her top speed is in those corners. She needs to know where the braking and acceleration points are in those corners.

Even the smallest change to a track, even something as simple as moving a DRS line, requires retraining the AI ​​to understand it in order to show its best driving behavior. It’s one of those things where I’m always like, we can just shift this curve here. Yes, we could just move that curve, but then we’d have objects in the wrong places. There would be collisions, it would be wrong. You would have an AI that would not be competitive. In a strange way, it’s always a big task for us.

Were there situations where your route didn’t feel like the real one?

Lee Mather: We had one or two moments like that, but they always went in our favor. A good example that I keep coming back to is Korea. They were planning a bridge across the track at one point and that was in the data that was provided to us because the track was obviously still under construction. We created them based on this CAD data, but they didn’t have time to actually build the bridge. So the game had something that the sport didn’t have.

And this year, of course, Miami with its marina is a prime example. We built the marina with water, with virtual water. And they built their marina with a solid, painted surface that looks like water. So that’s a small difference too. We definitely had no way of knowing that it wouldn’t be real water later on.

I would say the virtual version looked better.

Lee Mather: Well, that depends on whether you prefer virtual water or painted water.

How will the real-time updates affect the overall development process of F1 22?

Lee Mather: There are a number of things that we update live in-game these days. In terms of vehicle performance, we’ll assess as the season progresses if there’s a big shift in the order of the teams, but so far it’s pretty consistent and stable. I think Mercedes is on the verge of making the leap back to the top. This is something we have been doing for a number of years and we will continue to do so.

We take all the data from each race weekend and evaluate the performance. We also talk to the Formula 1 team, which gives us a good insight into how the teams are performing. It is difficult to distinguish where this achievement comes from. And that’s really important to us. We need to know if a car is particularly strong on certain track types or in certain corners because we try to generate lap times with the cars as they are driven in real life and not just say let’s open the cars make it faster on the straights and slower on the corners and improve lap times.

We do it the same way they do it in real life. It’s an ongoing process. This year we also have the driver ratings, which will continue to be adjusted throughout the season, in previous years they were always based on data only. Here we pulled a huge amount of data from the FIA ​​website for each driver and used that to create the stats so they were 100% data.

This year we have Anthony Davidson, David Croft and Alex Jacques as volunteers. They’ll give us their feel for the season, a kind of subjective feedback on what they think the riders are doing. So we can mix that up with the stats a bit so we can capture the story of that season. Because sometimes the dates don’t reflect the story of the season. And that’s what we want.

We want players to understand why drivers have the stats they have and how they came about. If you saw the video from last week… Formula 1 released a fantastic video with the drivers telling all their stats, it’s very funny. As you can imagine, the Formula 1 drivers are the absolute ultimate. There is no such thing as a bad driver in Formula 1 and obviously everyone thinks they are number one even though there can only be one. But yeah, it’s very interesting how they react to it. Only a small number of people make it into Formula 1.

Whether it’s through a little support or through sheer talent, you still need to put in a tremendous effort to even drive in Formula 1. But to get back to your original question, we have a real season start again this year, which we will update as the season progresses. The real season start gives the player the opportunity to enter the career at any point in the season. So you take over the score of the season.

You already mentioned the driver ratings. How important was it to you to provide regular updates here?

Lee Mather: This is something we think is important for a number of reasons. It’s important because they play a big part in My Team. So if you want to bring a driver into My Team who is your favorite driver but maybe not doing as well, these stats need to be taken into account in the game. If you have a driver that you really like and who suddenly does very well in the real world, that wouldn’t be great for you [wenn sich die Werte nicht ändern]. You’d love to add him to your team, but his stats don’t really reflect what he’s doing in real life.

So it’s important that we adjust them. We try to keep the game as relevant as possible so that it reflects what is happening in the sport at the moment. And driver performance is one of the most relevant things that we want to pick up and adjust every year, as is team performance. And of course, it’s also a really good topic of conversation. It creates a lot of humor among drivers, and the content we extract from it is usually quite amusing too.

How far can you go with real-time updates in the future?

Lee Mather: I would like to go into detail. We have plans, but when they will be implemented has not yet been determined. There are some big technical implications and some things we’d like to explore. But I think gaming as a whole is turning into a very vibrant and evolving service. Games as a Service have been around for a long time. But yes, games being offered live and as a service are a big deal and that keeps the game fresher and relevant for longer. That’s why we’ve done what we’ve been doing for the last few years.

We’ve always done team updates, but bringing in the driver stats and stuff or the real season starts keeps the game fresher and more relevant to players for longer. And yes, we have some really cool ideas for the future.