F1 25: 2026 Season Pack Review

We’ve change into used to EA pumping out yearly renditions of most of its top-tier sports activities titles, whether or not that’s your Maddens, your FCs and even your NHLs. This 12 months, although, issues are taking an uncommon flip for the observe as much as F1 25. Reasonably than giving us F1 26, we’re getting a dose of DLC, a pit cease if you’ll, that’s wanging new tyres and a brand new entrance wing on to maintain F1 followers scooting across the monitor for an additional 12 months. It’s an odd alternative.

The rationale it’s an odd alternative is that the 2026 F1 season sees the largest rule change in a decade, bringing smaller, extra aerodynamic automobiles, chucking out the DRS overtakes of previous and altering up the ability models to have a extra even cut up of electrical energy and combustion energy. In addition to that, there’s a brand new monitor and two new groups on the grid within the type of Audi (previously Kick Sauber) and Cadillac, the American producer making its first foray into F1. In context, that’s a hell of a whole lot of issues to absorb, so why aren’t we getting a fully-fledged new version that displays all these modifications?

F1 25 remains a great rendition of F1 racing. We’ve continued to plough time into all of it 12 months, although as we load up the most recent model with the DLC put in it’s humorous discovering it nonetheless emblazoned with the F1 Film tie-ins that felt so essential to it final 12 months. Nonetheless, a 12 months is a very long time, and whereas Braking Level appears like a distant reminiscence, F1 25 has held up extremely effectively, with few foibles coming to mild by way of repeated play. We’re prepared for extra, although, and the 2026 Season Pack has come shut sufficient to the beginning of the actual F1 season that we’re just about prepared to just accept no matter EA throw at us.

In addition to the 2 new groups, and the brand new/returning drivers of Bottas, Perez and Lindblad, the opposite main addition is the all-caps MADRING, the brand new monitor in Madrid, and the primary new monitor to be added to the F1 schedule since 2023. Whereas we haven’t seen it but in actual life, it’s been nice to leap in with Codemasters’ greatest guess (knowledgeable by all of the architectural knowledge they will seize) and test it out within the season pack.

From the principle straight, pushing the highest pace of your automotive and grabbing the chance to overhaul, by way of to the second straight and its aero zones, it is a monitor that instantly feels such as you’re on the restrict. For being a avenue circuit, it’s obtained an incredible collection of nook varieties, with the second half feeling quick and flowing. It appears like a race monitor, one thing the opposite avenue circuits don’t at all times handle to drag off. As a preview of what we are able to anticipate to look at the actual drivers sort out later within the season, it’s a tantalising style, and it’ll be fascinating to see the place it falls in folks’s tier listing. For me? It’s someplace within the center.

This 12 months’s F1 season is, nonetheless, all in regards to the modifications to the ability unit and wings. All of these modifications have been represented within the F1 26 Season Pack, bringing in the necessity to harvest vitality, raise and coast, in addition to the highly effective increase mode. The best way Codemasters have completed that is by tweaking the prevailing DRS and ERS programs. As you enter into a delegated straight you’ll be able to interact S Mode to flap down each wings and shed downforce, and you are able to do this no matter how shut you might be to a different automotive. The ERS has been tweaked to match actual life too. You harvest vitality, you deploy your increase simply as you probably did earlier than, however you could be on high of this excess of you probably did beforehand with ERS, and it’s straightforward to seek out your self with none cost in your battery in case you don’t take it severely. Whether or not that’s an enchancment for gamers is up for debate, and possibly depends upon how invested you might be in it, however it’s genuine to this 12 months’s laws.

As we’ve seen by way of the opening of the actual season, there’s loads of battling occurring, however it may possibly really feel a little bit such as you’re yo-yoing backwards and forwards, and there’s undoubtedly extra to juggle than earlier than. You possibly can set it to work routinely, however it’s nowhere close to as environment friendly. Wish to go quick? Higher study to take advantage of the brand new programs.

Due to the brand new increase and the brand new automobiles, racing is extra fascinating and concerned total. The automobiles and smaller and lighter, and you may see that in the way in which they’re racing, with the AI utilising smaller gaps and making strikes the place they wouldn’t have within the 2025 automobiles. It feels extra enjoyable, and extra energetic, and the AI do appear to be extra prone to make errors than they did earlier than, a minimum of when taking part in on Legendary problem. In case you’re on the lookout for racing that pushes you to the restrict, working laborious to make overtakes after which defend in opposition to them coming again at you, Codemasters have nailed it.

One of many greatest issues over the past couple of years of F1 video games, and the real-life sport, has been the dreaded DRS practice, with everybody backing up behind a automotive that they couldn’t get previous. The place F1 25 did treatment that to a sure extent, the regulation modifications for the 2026 Season Pack, and the general shift within the AI, signifies that’s now a factor of the previous, which is one thing everybody needs to be celebrating. Go on. Have a good time.

Nevertheless, what’s maybe extra essential than all these additions and modifications is what we’re not getting, or what we’re dropping, actually. First up, whereas we greet the brand new groups, we’re waving goodbye to each the Braking Level’s Konnersport staff, and the F1 Film’s APXGP, that are locked out from the 2026 Driver Profession and My Crew modes. Admittedly, this makes loads of sense by way of the variety of drivers on the grid, as they took up the Cadillac spot final 12 months, and the truth that Codemasters would have needed to design a brand new 2026 automotive for them, however in case you’re significantly hooked up to Sonny Hayes, this is likely to be a painful breakup. Who wouldn’t have needed some loopy 26-driver race mode too?

Customized groups and profession saves will correspondingly additionally not switch to the 2026 season, which is a disgrace, however one which once more is sensible in context. What doesn’t make sense is the truth that there’s no co-op profession mode, and no ranked multiplayer, that are big for many who play competitively, or who prefer to go for the lengthy haul with a buddy. The common lobbies will likely be there, however their popularity for being extra Mario Kart than F1 gained’t please those that need to concentrate on the racing.