F1® 2018 ADDS EVEN GREATER DEPTH TO CAREER MODE
Latest Developer Diary Focuses on Research & Development Enhancements
Larkspur, Calif. – July 25, 2018 – Codemasters® has today released the second part in a series of developer diaries for F1® 2018, the official videogame of the 2018 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP™, detailing how even greater depth has been added to the Career mode by expanding the player’s research and development options. The changes and additions to the system will now see each F1 team have its own unique technology tree with differing strengths and weaknesses.
The second of the four part series, which is available to watch now at www.youtube.com/formula1game, reveals that F1 2018’s Career will feature significant rule changes between seasons during the Career for the first time. Just like in the real sport, these rule changes can have a great effect on which teams compete for the championship so it is important to react to them as soon as possible.
“We already had an extensive R&D system in last year’s game but wanted to expand this for F1 2018 based both on feedback from our community and where we want to take the Career experience too,” commented Lee Mather, game director, F1 2018. “We have made significant changes to the in-game pricing structure, added ERS upgrades, given each of the Formula 1 Teams their own unique R&D tree, and added a fog of war around the development.
“Probably the most significant addition is the introduction of rule changes, meaning that each season you don’t know where the other teams are going to be performance wise. It makes every year unique and drives you to want to do season after season.” Lee continued. “The player will be notified by their engineer that a rule change could be taking place at the end of the year and they can choose to use R&D points to preserve upgraded items to protect areas that have already been developed. Doing so could see the player starting the following season in a stronger position. However, the other teams will also have to contend with the rules changes, meaning you take to the grid in Melbourne not knowing which teams are the fastest.”
F1 2018 features all the official teams, the drivers and all 21 circuits of the thrilling 2018 season, including Circuit Paul Ricard and the Hockenheimring. As well as the current season’s offerings the game includes 20 iconic cars from the history of the sport allowing you to drive the likes of James Hunt’s legendary 1976 championship winning McLaren M23D and Niki Lauda’s Ferrari 312 T2, both of which featured in the hit movie ‘Rush’ (2013). F1 2018 will release onto PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, the Xbox One family of devices including the Xbox One X and Windows PC on August 24.
Follow Codemasters F1 games blog (http://blog.codemasters.com/f1/) and social channels on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Formula1game) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/formula1game) for future updates.
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About Codemasters
Codemasters (AIM:CDM) is an award winning British video game developer and publisher with over 30 years of heritage. The company specializes in high quality racing games including DiRT, GRID and the BAFTA award-winning official FORMULA 1 series of videogames.
For more information on Codemasters’ product portfolio, please visit www.codemasters.com. Join in the conversation with @codemasters on Twitter or Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/codemasters.
F1 2018 Game – an official product of the FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP. © 2018 The Codemasters Software Company Limited (“Codemasters”). All rights reserved. “Codemasters”®, “EGO”® and the Codemasters logo are registered trade marks owned by Codemasters.
The F1 FORMULA 1 logo, F1 logo, FORMULA 1, FORMULA ONE, F1, FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, GRAND PRIX and related marks are trade marks of Formula One Licensing BV, a Formula 1 company. © 2018 Cover images Formula One World Championship Limited, a Formula 1 company. Licensed by Formula One World Championship Limited. The FIA and FIA AfRS logos are trade marks of Federation Internationale de l’Automobile. All rights reserved.
All other copyrights or trade marks are the property of their respective owners and are being used under license. Developed and published by Codemasters.
About Deep Silver
Deep Silver develops and distributes interactive games for all platforms. The Deep Silver label means to captivate all gamers who have a passion for thrilling gameplay in exciting game worlds. Deep Silver works with its partners to achieve a maximum of success while maintaining the highest possible quality, always focusing on what the customer desires.
Deep Silver has published more than 200 games since 2003, including its own brands like the open world extravaganza Saints Row, the zombie action franchise Dead Island, and the grim post-apocalyptic future of the Metro series. Deep Silver also owns the development studios Deep Silver Dambuster Studios in Nottingham, UK; Deep Silver Fishlabs in Hamburg, Germany, and Deep Silver Volition based in Champaign, IL, USA. For more information please visit www.deepsilver.com.
With the elves leaving to the mainland, humans began to settle on the land of Alfheim and founded a new kingdom named Astoria where they began to thrive. That is until the Lombardian Empire turned their sights towards the now vibrant island, waging a war that was only held at a deadlock thanks to Astoria being assisted by elves from the mainland and special tools named Armonics, instruments capable of using special magics that were given to the people by the great Shining Dragon of legend.
It is interesting to note that right off the bat Shining Resonance Refrain recommends that players should try the original story first before playing the Refrain version, since the Refrain version contains a few extra tidbits of information and two characters that will almost immediately join your party even though they are enemies in the main game. That being said, there really are no downsides to actually playing this mode right away as not only will extra content be included but there is very little in the way of actual story spoilers with the addition of these two characters other than their party addition being rather odd.
All of the characters, both female and male, can be talked through at bonfires with special “Night Events” that will allow you to grow closer together and eventually you can even go on dates in the main city to unlock additional pieces of their storyline, fleshing out these characters to a rather satisfying degree. This is especially true in the case of the bonus characters included in the Refrain mode.
Outside of town players will find that there is a very large world open to them where enemies can be found roaming the wilds and inside of dungeons. There is no option to perform an advanced attack on enemies, instead when you grow close enough to them combat will automatically begin and take place in real time in that location. Combat works with players controlling a specific character while the rest of your party follows orders that can be changed at any time.
This AP system does feel like it slows combat down a bit too much at times but thankfully between the combination of Force attacks, a wide array of skills to unlock and eventually choose from, and the ability for Yuma to transform into the Shining Dragon at the risk of going berserk, and you’ll find that there is plenty of depth to this combat system. This is especially true in regards to the B.A.N.D. system that allows your characters to perform a song together that will provide various buffs to the party depending on who is performing in the center.
Shining Resonance Refrain boats both an impressive Japanese dubbing as well as a well handled English voice track, giving players a satisfying option to choose between and swap whenever they wish. The background music is also rather impressive in nature as all of the standard music is pleasant on the ears and there is a rather large amount of vocal tracks included in the game thanks to the musical nature of some combat elements.
The level design is a bit of a mixed bag. Levels are generally a linear mix of fighting through to new areas, holding out choke points during enemy rushes or map objectives, then doing it all over again. The defense sections is Earthfall at its best. The addition of barricades, automatic turrets, and big mounted guns gives players quite a bit of flexibility on where they want to create a choke point, instead of being stuck with one or two options like Left 4 Dead series. Navigating through levels is a bit tricky. Unless there is an objective explicitly marked in the world, finding the right path forward can be difficult in forested areas and larger interior zones. The game has too few subtle hints to guide the players in the right direction, forcing them to simply memorize the map.
