Management sims have often stayed on PC due to their nature of being menu-heavy games. Developer Frontier Developments is well-accustomed toward creating such titles with its expertise in theme park and space sims over the years. That experience of working on console games has paid off well in making F1 Manager 2022 surprisingly accessible on console. But aside from being easier to grasp, it is also an impressive feat overall and one that allows the racing management sim to shine no matter what system it is on.
Due to it being such a niche title, it’s worth pointing out who F1 Manager 2022 is truly for. Codemasters’ yearly F1 series of racing titles already has a quite in-depth career mode and allows for you to actually race the vehicles. Frontier’s management game is more for those who always wished there was more depth to that experience and get more thrill from doing management tasks, such as staffing teams and balancing finances. Codemasters’ racing series is built for those with a more casual interest in the sport and people who would rather be the one burning the rubber on the track. Both are great at what they do, but they are for different audiences (although you should have at least a passing interest in Formula 1 to get the most out of it).
This isn’t to say the races in F1 Manger 2022 are a passive experience, though. In fact, they’re some of the most thrilling moments that the game has to offer since it is incredibly engaging to spin so many different plates. Players might not be steering the high-speed cars, but they are giving directions, choosing fuel and tire strategies, deciding when to pit, and having a real impact on whether the team succeeds or fails. Some of these lessons will be learned the hard way, such as when both of my drivers hilariously ran out of gas on the last lap to ruin a great race. Safe to say, I never ignored my fuel estimates after that.
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You get to choose what F1 team you want to manager in the game, which can lead to very different experiences. If you choose a top-tier team, such as Ferrari or Red Bull, then you’ll instantly have success on the track but be burdened with the highest expectations possible (Ferrari’s board of directors were unhappy when both of my drivers landed on the podium but failed to win the race). Conversely, you can try to build a lower-level team into a contender if you want a more long-term goal to achieve. Both ways are interesting and viable depending on what you want to get out of the game. I mostly played with Ferrari since I’d rather contend from the get-go but it was still an intense season of races, as there was little room for failure and the standings stayed close with Red Bull’s team and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton regularly threatening my place at the podium. Regardless of the specifics, both offer something a little different, which is noteworthy.
Outside of racing, players can expect menus on top of menus and layers of different options. If there is a statistic you’re trying to find, it’s here somewhere buried within seas of menus. It’s a bit overwhelming at first, although there is a helpful guided tutorial during your initial foray into racing management. From developing car parts to scouting potential staff members you want to lure away from other teams, every aspect of racing is covered. Want to make sure your team has the nicest windmill tunnels to test your car part development? It’s there and upgradeable along with 50 other options. This is a game for those that love minutia and Frontier is happy to oblige anyone wanting to geek out about F1 vehicles, even on consoles.
While it may not seem like it at first, its deluge of menus have also been designed well for newcomers. Frontier’s design intelligently surfaces important decisions through emails, which gives reminders to develop car parts that are running low and to assign any skill points your staff may have earned. With embedded shortcuts in the emails that lead straight to the necessary menu (one that might be several button presses away otherwise), the game allows for more casual players like myself to still get a lot out of the experience. While these emails won’t be needed by the more meticulous players that plan out every step ahead and are scouting for driver prospects that might pay off a decade down the line, it’s great for those less experienced in the niche management genre.
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While I’m certainly not going to drop my job and try to manage a racing team anytime soon, F1 Manager 2022 gives a great glimpse at the drama, stress, and triumphs that these team managers face. It’s a bit odd to say about a game filled with menus, but it also humanizes racing in a way similar to Netflix’s stellar Formula 1: Drive to Survive as it demonstrates just how many moving parts it takes to make a race team successful. It’s far more than just the drivers, there’s so many engineers, pit crew members, and other faces behind the scenes that allow for that glory to be achieved. If you’ve got a knack for tinkering around and dig long-term planning, Frontier’s racing management sim is a real winner.
SCORE: 8/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 8 equates to “Great.” While there are a few minor issues, this score means that the art succeeds at its goal and leaves a memorable impact.
