F1 2021 is the fourteenth title in the racing simulation series, and remains the official video game of the Formula 1 Championship. The latest title comes with a new feature known as Braking Point, the first story mode for the franchise. Braking Point takes players through the 2019 F2 season and into the 2020 and 2021 F1 seasons. This new mode for F1 2021 is the culmination of a large investment of time by Codemasters, and is part of the developer's thrust toward broadening the series' appeal.

In an interview with Game Rant, F1 series senior creative director Lee Mather spoke about the making of Braking Point, its inspiration, as well as his overall goal of broadening the game and the series' appeal. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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Q: So what excites you most about this game in particular?

A: We've all been getting very excited about Braking Point. We knew just from the concept that it was going to be really something special and something very different for the series. After we dipped our toe in the water with F1 2019's F2 feeder series, we thought, "We're actually pretty good at doing the character side of stuff." Which is quite daunting for a team that has traditionally made a racing game.

It's not easy to put in that sort of emotion that people want the characters to have. I think what we achieved with Devon Butler really gave us the confidence to push ahead with what we've done for F1 2021. So obviously we put the wheels in motion back in 2019 for what we were going to do with F1 2021.

Q:  That must have been quite the intimidating proposition to take on.

A: Yeah and I think we learned quite a lot in 2019 and, obviously, we did partner with professional writers as well. We could do the very broad strokes of what a story could be, but we couldn't give the intricacies. We can give the F1 side of things, but then they can really build the emotion and embellish the story and build the characters and the character timelines. I think we would have fallen short without that degree of professionalism in the writing.

Q: Did it end up feeling like a natural transition? Adding in a story mode to F1 2021?

A: It did. We are quite lucky in that we do get to see quite a lot of behind the scenes of the sport and we get to speak to a lot of people who work in F1. And you realize how nice all these people are and what their lives are like, and what their day-to-day is like. It's not massively different to what we do. It's a very passion-filled industry. It's a sport where everybody's in it because they love what they do and they love working in F1, which is very similar to how we work.

I think the players, they'll have watched Drive to Survive potentially and they'll see how that translates to what we've done as well. There's a lot of inspiration from Drive to Survive. So there was always a little bit of fear going into it, a little bit of a potential risk going into it. It is a slightly different direction, but we've retained the rest of the core of the game as well so this is an addition. We've built the game out again, broadened its appeal, and given players something fresh, new, and exciting.

Q: And Drive to Survive kind of paved the way and almost naturally let more people into the sport and into the game?

A: I think that's something that we've seen massively over the last few years. Since Liberty took over F1, you've seen such a broadening of how people can consume F1. It's not just through the Pay Per View TV channels, there's great social content now from all of the teams and F1 themselves. Their YouTube channels are filled with amazing stuff and then obviously Drive to Survive is, it's drama, it's racing, it's excitement beautifully presented, and beautifully filmed. I think it's really excited an audience that didn't even know they were F1 fans.

Red Bull pit stop

Q: How much contact and input is there from the actual teams when it comes to making the game?

A: So in terms of making the game itself, that's very much our direction. In terms of the on-track experience and the drivers' experience, we get really good input from the teams now. We found that during the lockdown, while the teams weren't racing, we had access to a bunch of people who would normally be traveling the world.

And now that everybody's back into the swing of things and they're traveling again, we've continued those meetings, they've become a regular thing. Only recently some of the teams have been able to get their hands on the beta version of the game and we're already getting feedback on what they think of F1 2021. So it's been really fantastic. And as the teams have become more aware of how powerful the game is and what a large audience video gaming has, it's really opened more doors for us. We work very closely together these days.

Q: And getting back to Braking Point. Was the team aiming more for a shared experience or more for diverging paths?

A: It was always going to be linear experience so we could control what was happening in the story. Obviously there's only so many different assets you can create so if everybody's going to be able to take different paths, we would have to create so many different sequences and that would become very difficult to manage.

We've got a really strong story that we wanted to tell. That was the approach we took, we wanted everybody to have the same experience and for everybody to experience that same great story with a character-driven narrative.

Q: And is this a final step or is this more just an indicator of where you want the franchise to go?

A: So we've got lots of things that we would like to do with F1. This was one of them. You'll see also we've got the two player career this year. That was another big ticket item that we've been considering for a long time and wanting to do. As I've said, F1 2019 gave us a chance to try this and see how we thought it would play out.

We've seen other sports titles certainly include story modes over the last few years and we've always felt with F1 that you can create a really great career experience. I think it also broadens the appeal to players who've potentially watched Drive to Survive or that have a passive interest in F1 and suddenly that really hooks them as well. So it broadens the appeal of the game and it gives different ways to engage with F1 content which I think is really important.

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Q: In general, how did the team approach making the game a simulator for the hardcore players and a fun racing game for the more casual fans?

A: Yeah, that's been one of our long-term goals, broadening the ability for players to race a Formula One car. They're always going to be fast, they're always going to brake incredibly late, to turn incredibly hard, decelerate incredibly quickly. And that's very hard to get somebody who's not used to a racing game up to speed with.

And that's why last year we brought in the casual mode which really helped massively. It assisted the player in being able to navigate the circuit. So I think we've always worked in the same way that we want to create cars to be as accurate as possible and to create a very solid believable tire model, and have great physics. We're always looking at the levers we can pull to make sure that no matter what level of gamer you are, you will get a great experience.

To the other extreme, this year we've got the expert settings which give players who have played a Formula One game for a number of years access to so many of the things that we have to play with while creating the experience. So I think, year on year we broaden the appeal and it's always about giving people who, no matter what level of skill they're at, a chance to play a Formula One game.

Q: How much would you say that the game sells Formula One versus Formula One sells the game? Is it a racing game that then invites people into that world or is it mainly for people from that world?

A: I think over the years that's changed quite dramatically. We've got such strong career and my team game modes in there, there's so many compelling reasons to play. Whether you're a Formula One fan or not. The game itself has got such a great structure and great loops that people want to play. And I think that's a really strong way for people who may be like racing games to play Formula One and get the experience there. Then they'll start to fall in love with the sport as well.

f1 2021 racing

Q: What brought about the idea of Real Season Start?

A: 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 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.

Q: Is there some piece of the game that you felt like you haven't been asked about enough, something that you think has gone under the radar?

A: We didn't shout too loudly about what we've been doing with damage. 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.

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

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