F1 fans have often dreamed about joining the actual motorsport and taking victories on their way to winning the World Championship. Fortunately, with a new feature to the series, players of F1 2021 will be able to the next best thing. The developers of F1 2021, Codemasters, have added in a feature known as Real Season Start which lets players take over for drivers in the midst of the actual season.

Senior Creative Director for the F1 game series, Lee Mather, sat down with Game Rant and spoke about Real Season Start and the process of adding it into the game. On top of this, Mather touched on the realism the developers focused on when creating F1 2021. Mather has been an important part of the F1 series for years and F1 2021 has been created as a balance of the usual racing simulation with a variety of new features as well.

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F1 2021's release on July 16th lines up with the middle of the actual F1 season. In previous years, this had been a bit of a missed opportunity for the developers. Real Season Start now can take advantage of the ongoing F1 season by allowing players to participate in the championship in a virtual way. Making the real season more relevant than ever was part of the reason why Mather and the team looked to add this feature to their gaming series.

"The initial thinking of Real Season Start was very much looking at the relevance of the season in the game. We love the concept of changing history or changing the future or deviating from what's going on in real life. Kind of like the player making a change to what's happening in the current season."

The new feature allows players to start a season in F1 2021 from any point. Players can jump into the actual ongoing season with the standings as they were at that exact race. At the time of the game's release, the F1 season will be heading to the British Grand Prix with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen leading the Driver's Championship by 32 points. Players will be able to jump right into the season and either cut down that lead or expand it, depending on their driver selection and preference.

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This being a new feature for Mather and the Codemasters team meant that its implementation was going to be a bit of a challenge. Having the pandemic alter the regular season schedule has certainly added a level of difficulty that the team couldn't have anticipated either. With tracks being subtracted, moved, or added at unpredictable times, Codemasters have had to be adaptive in their approach to this new feature.

"The more we talked about it, the more we looked at the concern of what might happen again this year with circuits that weren't going to be on the calendar or were going to be on the calendar but that we didn't have. We saw that was going to open up a really cool opportunity. We can at least generate the results from that race weekend so the player could still have a season that contains the results for a track that we don't actually have in the game itself."

This approach is one that indicates the team's commitment and has been to replicating reality as best it could. Mather and Codemasters wanted the Real Season Start feature to feel as close to reality as possible and to bring players right into the title fight as soon as it has changed. And despite challenges with getting every circuit, the team is still able to ensure that the point system and standings are still accurate and up to date.

And this is all part of F1 2021's commitment to realism. As a racing simulation game, the F1 series has always aimed at replicating the feel of the motorsport to the players. This comes from continued relationships with actual F1 teams as well as a commitment to replicating difficulty driving these cars as well as the consequences that can come along with small mistakes.

"This year we're coming out on both next generation and current generation platforms. Something that you'll gain from the next gen platforms is in the damage visuals. You'll certainly see more scrapes and bolts on the cars but the damage model itself has been expanded quite significantly. And this is something you'll benefit from on all platforms. There's now more areas of the car that can be damaged. If you play on simulation damage, you'll be knocking off the wing mirrors, damaging the bargeboards, the little winglets, the edge of the floor. Areas like that we've gone into a lot more detail and granularity with the damage model."

This is part of the general theme when it came to making F1 2021: the replication of the motorsport. Allowing players to not only jump into the actual, ongoing season of F1 but also making sure their cars are as accurate as possible. This option has long been part of the game series overall appeal and it remains a part of the latest title in the series.

F1 2021 will be available on July 16 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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