► Tested on PS5
► New teams and cars
► Is it worth the upgrade?
F1 25 is here, as inevitable as a questionable Ferrari strategy or a Red Bull mid-season driver swap. With EA at the helm, you get an F1 racing game release on cue every year; first there’s the team launches, then pre-season testing, then Drive to Survive – and at some point, the Formula One game comes out.
This question this year, is just as inevitable: is it worth buying, and has EA done enough to convince die-hard F1 gamers to upgrade? Keep reading our full review (on PS5) to find out.
Should you buy F1 26? That depends on how much you want the new teams and drivers. The game itself better than before, but not by a huge amount.
At a glance
Pros: Improved handling model, My Team gets an overhaul, rescanned circuits feel grittier
Cons: Not a huge leap compared with last year, not all the tracks are classics, understandably leans towards casual fans
What’s new?
As you’d expect from the name, this is the official game of the 2025 Formula One world championship. With that in mind you get all the drivers and teams updated for this year’s season – complete with all the big moves. Lewis Hamilton now lines up in Maranello red, while Kimi Antonelli replaces him at Mercedes. Carlos Sainz has also moved down the grid to Williams, where he hopes to help bring the Grove team to its former glory.
As it happens, this game has the licence for the Formula 2 grid as well, so you’ll be able to play as the sport’s next superstars – in theory.
The F1 calendar continues to swell, and it’s here in full – along with a few reverse tracks too. That means you can attack iconic favourites like Silverstone, Suzuka and Monza, or endure the more cynical additions to Liberty Media’s schedule. Which is which we’ll leave up to you.
New to F1 25 are reverse layouts for a handful of circuits including Silverstone, and they’re better than you’d think. Rather than simply giving you the opposite directions, these tracks have totally bespoke AI behaviour (more on that later) DRS zones and pitlane entries, so they’re more than an afterthought.
We’ll get to the new normal driving modes later, but first it’s worth talking about the two improved ‘Drive to Survive’ style modes. The first is My Team, which puts you on the pitwall, and in charge of a Formula 1 team. You’ll have to sign drivers, prioritise upgrades and balance budgets as well as many other bits and pieces. It’s not exactly F1 Manager in full, but it’s quite a bit more involving than before. Either way it’s nice to have and does offer good replay value.
Alongside the new My Team 2.0 mode is Braking Point 3, which is best described as F1’s campaign mode. Here you’re plunged into a dramatic DTS-style world of rivalry, press room battles and soap opera dialogue. It’s not for everyone, but for those getting into F1 via Netflix it’ll be entertaining and familiar. As before you’ll be given missions, tasks and goals to complete as you make your way to championship glory.
But Netflix isn’t the only way into Formula One in 2025; the F1 game also gets a Hollywood crossover in the Iconic Edition. Here the structure is like the other story modes, but you get to play key parts of film as the fictional APXGP drivers. F1 is big business now, and tie ins like this feel not only sensible, but fun in practice.
What’s it like to play?
F1 game handling can be a bit like a new iPhone release, some years you get next to nothing, other years you get big changes. In F1 25 the tyre models feel pretty different, and they have a significant impact on how you play the game. Higher grip tracks will burn your boots quicker, with an increased drop in performance depending on the compound you’re running. Equally, lower grip tracks will be more kind to your tyres.
The more you slide the car or lean on the tyres on fast corners, the sooner they’ll wear out. When they do finally begin to give up, slides are easier to catch at least. If you want to win, you’ll need to look after them – just like real life.
There’s a new suspension model, which is harder to notice – but more obvious are the new LiDAR-scanned circuits with bumps, kerbs and camber changes you can feel. With that in mind, you’ll get more enjoyment out of this game when using a wheel (a Fanatic Clubsport base with Porsche Vision wheel for us).
Put it all together and F1 25 feels more like driving a high-performance car and less like piloting a spaceship. You can detect more of the car’s mass and grip changes through fast sweeps such as Suzuka’s Esses or Silverstone’s Maggotts. On a wheel, you can also feel the understeer building progressively, and traction loss is less binary too. What’s more, riding kerbs is rewarding because it’s a more tactile experience here – and carries more risk.
Driving on your own is better but the AI has had some tweaks too. Although they seem slightly too good at it, the AI cars must manage their tyres too. In several races, I also found they defended more realistically and occasionally misjudged overtakes.
It’s all wrapped up in presentation which is just as slick and polished as you’d hope from EA: replays, overlays and podium ceremonies have been overhauled to echo Sky F1 broadcasts, and there’s more mid-race chatter on the team radio to add an extra dollop of immersion.
Verdict
We’ll update this review the more we play F1 25, but our first impressions are good. F1 25 doesn’t revolutionise the formula, but it does address some of the gremlins of the previous game. It’s still not the best racing game out there for console owners (that’d be Forza for Xbox owners and GT7 for PS5 people) but it’s in the leading pack.
Handling is more authentic; My Team has genuine new depth, and presentation creeps ever closer to the real thing. Braking Point remains a draw for casuals, just like the F1 movie tie-in.
In many ways F1 25 echoes exactly what’s happening in the real sport. New cars and regulations are just around the corner, so many teams this year have opted to evolve their cars instead of creating all-new ones. And it feels as though the developers of this game have done the same. The result is a game that’s better than before, but one that doesn’t take any huge leaps.