Codemasters might have the official F1 license, but that hasn’t stopped indie developers from creating their own take on the premier racing class. New Star GP drew on classic Sega arcade racing thrills last year, but speeding toward a fierce braking zone is Formula Legends, the fresh-faced rookie, which has taken the hard-nosed, serious sport and given it a cute, hyper-deformed makeover, all the while attempting to retain the competitive racing action of its inspiration. It’s a pretty successful attempt too.
Formula Legends is not officially licensed by the FIA, so there’s no official drivers, no official constructors, and no official tracks. What there is, however, is a roster of drivers inspired by their real-life counterparts, so you can welcome Danny Ricchiordi and Luis Hammerton to the sport, rather than Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton. You can laugh your little socks off at Batteri Voltas and Charlie Lacreme, or just enjoy my personal favourite, Hans Troll, simply because of how much it might annoy Lance… or more probably his dad.
Formula Legends takes you through the history of F1, through a lightly distorted lens. Starting in the 1960s, the central Story Mode offers a range of races in each era, providing a taste of the different cars, steadily improving technology, and the changes to the layout of each track over the years.
While they’re not allowed to use the official names for each location, the different tracks and their alternate layouts across the decades are close enough to their real-world inspirations to let you pick out the sweeping curves of Spa-Francorchamps and the iconic setting at Monza. They’re definitely ‘inspired by’ though, so if you think you know the Melbourne Park circuit like the back of the hand, you might need to prepare to stare questioningly at the skin there. In some cases the tracks are mirrored too, presumably to avoid too many angry looks from license holders, so you come away with a flavour of the sport, rather than a full course.
The little F1 race cars we get in Formula Legends are undoubtedly cute to look at, but they’re almost as difficult to drive as the real thing. Dropping things down to Easy, alongside a couple of driving assists for braking and traction control, will likely see you whizz by the competition, and Formula Legends becomes wholly approachable here. Meanwhile, playing on Normal really ramps the difficulty up, and it’s a welcome and rewarding challenge where track knowledge and braking points need to be spot on. The Hard setting following that isn’t as much of a leap, but you will need to drive more or less flawlessly to be in with a chance of a podium.
The AI drivers won’t make that very easy. To say that they’re aggressive would be to downplay just how little they care about whose corner it is, and you’ll be glad to discover that damage is a health bar, rather than individual pace-wrecking components. They’re not really all that smart, and you’ll see them careening off at various points, but when Logan Sargeant was still in the sport up until a year ago, that remains fairly realistic.
I really enjoy Formula Legends handling model. It’s undoubtedly an arcade racer, and they feel more like the toy cars they look like than open-wheel race cars, but once you’ve got into the flow of things, sweeping around corners with surety becomes second nature. You can’t treat it like a simulation, and if you do, you’ll actually come off far worse than you might expect.
There are some interesting nods to realism though, including having to select the right tyres, coping with their degradation, and conducting pitstops. These involve a fun little mini-game where you have to match the right button press, all the while repairing and refuelling your car, before mashing the analogue stick buttons in, and it definitely adds to the experience, especially in a tight race. Alongside that, the attention to detail given to each era is a real treat, from the sepia tones and the pitstop tents of the early years through to the inclusion of BRS – definitely not DRS – in the modern age.
Formula Legends is a small-scale taste of F1, and that becomes more apparent the longer you spend with it. There are no multiplayer modes here, whether local or online, and that’s a real shame for an approachable arcade racer. Equally, there are only 14 tracks, and while that number is buoyed by the different renditions of them across each era, they are fundamentally the same track. When the sport has expanded as far as it has, with sprint races and 24 race seasons, that means there’s some obvious gaps.
Those gaps continue onto the grid, so races host 14 cars, rather than the 20 we’re used to, and the maximum championship length you can create is 14 too – fine if you want to recreate a season from the 1980s, but limited for the modern sport. I’d really like the option of multi-season championships, and racers moving about, but that’s clearly not what Formula Legends is designed for. This is an indie game created with a genuine love for the sport, and it offers a wholly different take from its peers.
Performance on PS5 is generally very good, with crisp, clear visuals that make the most of the cute art design. There’s the tiniest hint of pop in, but it fades into the distance so much that you won’t notice while you’re concentrating on the more immediate racing line. We did also get to check out the Nintendo Switch version, and that’s a wholly different story, with glaring pop-in, massively reduced resolution, and the lack of analogue triggers causing all sorts of issues. Make sure to pick up the PC, PS5 or Xbox versions, and cross your fingers for a Switch 2 update…