As many of you have already passionately-discussed in the earlier F1 2010 news item, Codemasters has released clarification on some of the features their upcoming Formula One 2010 title for the PC, Xbox 306 and Playstation 3 will not contain:
- Laser Scanned Track Data – Considered early on in the project we assessed for our needs and decided against its inclusion in favour of other features. Our track creation pipeline has been further developed and we’re now capable of producing extremely authentic environments, track surfaces included, without the need for this data.
- Safety Car – A common forum request but investigation proved, surprisingly, that this actually offers very little in terms of enjoyable game experience in comparison to other game elements we’ll reveal later. Once you find out what we spent the time on instead we’re sure you’ll agree that this was the right decision!
- Formation Lap – Currently not part of the plan, for the same reasons as safety car. This is not to say we won’t look to add a little of what the formation lap provides!
- A Feeder Series – We’re at full-stretch creating an engaging Formula One experience. Including a feeder series is not part of the deal we have and code support alone would take too much away from the main game to prove worthwhile in 2010.
- Split Screen – Some of you will have noticed this is not present in any recent Codemasters racing titles. Early on we established the huge amount of resources this feature would consume and, after weighing against our need to move the series in an original direction, made the tough decision that F1 2010 would not be the project to return Split Screen. We have included an interesting local multiplayer mode in its place and an extensive online multiplayer mode.
While some of the decisions regarding the formation lap and the safety car can be argued about, the absence of laser-scanned tracks comes as a big surprise. The usage of laser-scanning has not just been confirmed by Codemasters last year, the studio even went ahead and released laser-scanning images from Spa Francorchamps to get gamers excited about this feature.
Keep in mind however that this does not necessary mean F1 2010 will have inaccurate tracks. Even though iRacing has established laser-scanned tracks as sort of a gold standard in the sim racing world, many excellent and accurate tracks made by Simbin, Slightly Mad Studios or modding teams such as Virtua_LM have been made completely without laser-scanned data.
Following their maiden Formula One title that was released only for the Playstation Portable and the Nintendo Wii, Codemasters will be bringing the 2010 Formula One season to the PC, the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. F1 2010 has been confirmed to be released in September 2010.
Even though their upcoming Gran Turismo 5 title for the Playstation 3 wasn’t a big part of their exhibition lineup, Sony used the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to once more ensure the gaming community that GT5 will indeed be released this year.
