As most racing game aficionados will know, last year's rendition of the revered Formula 1 franchise on PC was rather great. In fact, it was so good that we couldn't help but wonder just where will the developers take the franchise next. And now we know, because - according to reviews - the F1 2021 PC game has a genuinely great career/story mode. How's that for a surprise?

F1 2021 is set to wrap up its warmup lap today, on the 15th of July, and if you were hoping to read a comprehensive overview of everything the game is and everything it isn't before splurging, you've come to just the right place. Down below, we'll go over the game's features and technical details. We'll also explain how its raytracing mode works, and if it runs well in the first place.

Naturally, we've also got a few neat reviews we'd love to feature. All of this - and more - to keep you informed on what makes F1 2021 the ultimate Formula 1 game on PC.

Get a Steam copy of F1 2021 today!

F1 2021 PC Reviews - Is It Really That Good?

"The races are astonishingly realistic in their ebb and flow," explained PC Gamer in their recent review. "Weather cycles first play out in the sky and then on the track, giving you decisions to make over tyre strategy. Rival cars crash off-screen and bring out the safety car, and all manner of technical issues can spring up, including getting stuck in 4th gear. Of course, if you'd changed the gearbox before the race, that might not have happened. But managing an issue and still prevailing makes for some incredibly satisfying gameplay."

IGN had similarly high praise for the game, if you can believe that: "F1 2021 is the best-looking and most customisable instalment of the long-running Codemasters series to date," they claim. "With the addition of Braking Point it’s also arguably the boldest F1 game so far... ...injecting a story mode into the F1 series was a risk well worth taking and I’m certainly looking forward to more of it."

More generally, the F1 2021 PC game is getting stellar reviews across the board. It's currently sitting at a phenomenal 85/100 on Metacritic, and we invite you to check out more reviews, if you are so inclined. If, however, you've heard enough of that, and if you'd like to learn more about the game and its much-touted career mode, carry right on!

Content & Features

F1 2021 is remarkably rich when it comes to content. The 'Braking Point' campaign, for example, can be played by two players - a proper F1 team. Then there's the 'Real-Season Start' option, where you'll get to guide your own custom character through a virtualized version of the ongoing Formula One festivities.

Further still, there's the 'My Team' mode, where you'll get to lead your own fully customizable team through a number of seasons and races. Of course, the inevitable star of the show - Career Mode - is here as well. Here, you'll get to play through a full 10 years of F1 development, featuring your very own R&D team and the all-new Quick Practice gameplay option.

On top of all of the above, we've also got the following:

Also worth noting is that split-screen multiplayer is present - both in casual gameplay and during the Braking Point narrative. All in all, an amazing batch of content that's really hard to resist.

Narrative-Focused Modes Shouldn't be an Afterthought After All

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The thing about F1 2021 is that it takes some chances. To be perfectly clear, nobody's going to make you go and play the 6-hour campaign if you really don't want to. This time around, though, you're probably going to, because apparently, it's pretty darn amazing.

Featuring an optional two-player mode and a mandatory rivalry with a super-villain-in-the-making Devon Butler, F1 2021's main campaign mode is ridiculously immersive. To the point where one might consider it to be an immersive sim, and we're really only half-joking at this point. There's a number of interconnected systems that aren't a true sandbox gameplay environment, but they all react to what you do and how you do it: "[the game] is reasonably reactive to your actions, too, with the fictional social network noticing when you win or beat a rival, which goes some way to making the universe more believable," said PC Gamer's reviewer.

Now, to be sure, it's not industry-defining by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that the racing game genre is so underserved when it comes to narrative development. Could F1 finally be the series to feature a genuinely engaging story? Well, if Codemasters' F1 team continues doing what they've done here, we'd say so!

It's also worth pointing out that F1 2021's story beats won't catch you off-guard. There are no world-ending threats or backstabbing spies here. Just some good old F1 drama, with fairly believable characters and an underscore of groundedness that nobody could've seen coming.

F1 2021 PC Game Technical Overview

Now that we've covered the campaign and the content, it's time to talk about F1 2021's technical aspects. As you've surely noticed by now, the game is visually incredible. This is easily the best-looking F1 game ever made, and one of the prettiest racing titles on the market. Of course, top-tier graphics come with top-tier hardware requirements. While the baseline setup isn't too excessive, be prepared to splurge if you're hoping to see the raytraced version of the game.

Recommended System Requirements

The minimum system requirements posit a GTX 950 spec, and we're prone to believe it! As beautiful as it is, F1 2021 also runs amazingly well, and we could see it performing admirably well even on lower-specced PCs. Of course, if you reduce your settings and your expectations.

In regard to raytracing, F1 2021 makes good use of Tensor cores if you have an Nvidia GPU. The RTX 3070 should, for example, do just fine at maximum settings. As for Radeon-equipped rigs, it seems like the RX 6800 should do the trick in most respects.

Final Remarks

Though F1 2021 might not sound like the most exciting racing game on the market, the simple truth is that it genuinely is one. Now, sure, we're aware of the fact that not everyone wants to play a borderline sim, and that not everyone's necessarily interested in Formula 1. However, developers have come up with an incredibly engaging campaign mode that's bound to be interesting even if you're not particularly keen on the sport.

It's just a remarkably well-produced game, no matter how you spin it. Phenomenal graphics are just a cherry on top of an amazing driving model and physics integration, and the story eases you into the game in the best way possible. We honestly don't think we've had a racing game of any kind with such a solid career mode yet.

And naturally, once you're done with the main narrative, you can continue to have a virtually infinite amount of fun playing Seasons and leading your Formula 1 R&D team ever-forward. We knew that this would be a decent game, to be sure. We just didn't think developers could pull out all the stops - again. A must-play, in our books.

Get a Steam copy of F1 2021 today!

As most racing game aficionados will know, last year’s rendition of the revered Formula 1 franchise on PC was rather great. In fact, it was so good that we couldn’t help but wonder just where will the developers take the franchise next. And now we know, because – according to reviews – the F1 2021 PC game […]