Codemasters talks up F1 2011

Codemasters' Formula 1 series will eventually feed times set by real life drivers to the player so they can compete with them in real time.

The beginnings of this will be seen in F1 2011, confirmed for release next year, Codemasters told Eurogamer.

"You're not going to see us on the next one just add a couple more tracks and a couple more drivers because it's the F1 2011 version," CEO Rod Cousens promised.

"We'll put a lot more into the game's design and we'll add more and more to it. They can start to almost really be the driver. They'll have to strategically figure out the pit stops, when to buy the fuel, what tyres to drive on.

"Eventually you'll go down the line where you will feed telemetry data in real time to the consumer to let them adjust their car because they get serious about racing against their hero, who could have posted a time two hours beforehand. And you've got the real track sat in front of you.

"It's our responsibility to keep the consumer engaged."

F1 2010 was a commercial and critical success for Codemasters.

It scored an excellent 8/10 in Eurogamer's review, and debuted in the UK all-formats chart at number one.

Cousens praised the development team for its hard work: "It's a lot more than it all fell in our laps," he said of F1 2010's success.

Cousens also discussed how Codemasters' Birmingham studio, which is responsible for the F1 series, is tackling the difficult challenge of making a new F1 game every year.

"On GRID and DIRT we don't annualise them, we do them every second year," Cousens explained. "But on F1 you have to annualise it, so to an extent you run parallel teams.

"They have that issue on FIFA. You have an overlap. The first six months, as they finish they come on and start the next one and it goes through. So you have a team and a half in many ways to annualise it. Otherwise your development time becomes six to eight months and you compromise the product."

In September Eurogamer exclusively revealed that Codemasters had begin work on the next instalment in the F1 franchise.

"[We have the most work to do on] Live the Life and multiplayer, just because we've had to invest that much time in the first one on the career, the meat and bones, the driving, the pit-stops, the weather," Senior producer Paul Jeal said.

"We had some great ideas which have been fairly well stripped back in development for both Live the Life and multiplayer."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...lks-up-f1-2011