F1 2020 lets you build a team from nothing, sign a driver, pick an engine and take it racing against the real grid. That single addition is the biggest change Codemasters has made to its Formula 1 series in years, and in this paper’s view it makes F1 2020 the best entry the studio has put out.
F1 2020 is the official game of the 2020 Formula 1 and Formula 2 championships. Codemasters developed and published it. It is the thirteenth title in the Formula 1 series developed by the studio and the twelfth main series installment in the franchise. It came out on 7 July for pre-orders of the Michael Schumacher Edition and on 10 July for the Seventy Edition, on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and, for the first time, Stadia.
The game features the twenty-two circuits, twenty drivers and ten teams proposed in the provisional 2020 Formula 1 World Championship. It is the last F1 game Codemasters released on its own before EA bought the studio in February 2021. It was delisted on consoles by the end of May 2022, and the Steam version followed in March 2023. The published critical score is 8.6 out of 10 on Metacritic.
Trailer, via EA SPORTS F1.
My Team, and what it asks of you
My Team is the headline. You create an F1 team for the very first time in the series and race alongside the official teams and drivers. You are not inheriting a seat. You are running an operation, and the game asks you to think like an owner as much as a driver.
That framing changes the pace of a season. The racing is still the racing, but between events you are making calls about the people and parts around you. Codemasters has built a mode that treats the paddock as a workplace.
The result is the most complete single-player structure the series has had. It gives a long season a spine that is not just race results.
Twenty-two circuits, ten teams, one unfinished calendar
The content list is exactly what the provisional 2020 championship proposed.
- Twenty-two circuits
- Twenty drivers
- Ten teams
F1 2020 features the championship as it was originally intended to be run before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the postponement or cancellation of several races. The proposed calendar and the season that was actually staged are not the same thing.
So the game is a record of a season that was planned and then rewritten. That is not a flaw in the design. It is a fact about the year it covers, and it gives F1 2020 a strange second life as a document.
Split screen, and casual racing on the couch
The other addition worth naming is split screen. F1 2020 offers split screen with casual race options for more relaxed racing, and the game’s modes list runs single player, multiplayer and split screen.
That pairing is a smart one. Split screen on its own is a feature. Split screen with casual settings is an invitation, and it lowers the cost of getting a second person onto the couch and into a car.
The game is played from a third-person perspective. The spread matters. A racing game that only works for one kind of player is a narrower product than one that works for a solo career, an online lobby and a living room at the same time.
Where F1 2020 sits against the rest of the series
| Feature | F1 2020 |
|---|---|
| My Team | Yes, first time in the series |
| Split screen | Offered, with casual race options |
| Platform reach | Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Stadia |
| Calendar | The provisional 2020 season, 22 circuits |
My Team is new. Stadia is new. Split screen with casual options is offered. Three of the four rows describe something the series did not have before, and the fourth is the content refresh you expect every year.
A yearly sports game usually sells one thing: the new season. F1 2020 sells the new season and two structural additions on top of it. That is a better year than most.
The Stadia release, and what it signals
F1 2020 was the first game in the series to come to Stadia. That is worth marking because of what it says about where Codemasters thought the audience was heading in 2020.
It also dates the game. The console versions were delisted by the end of May 2022, and the Steam version followed in March 2023. F1 2020 is now a game you cannot simply go and buy on the platforms it launched on.
That matters for anyone reading this in the present tense. The 8.6 is a judgment about the game as it was built and released, not about how easy it is to get hold of today. Those are separate questions and they deserve separate answers.
Formula 2, and the ladder underneath the ladder
F1 2020 is the official game of both the 2020 Formula 1 and Formula 2 championships. That dual billing is easy to skip past. It should not be.
Formula 2 is the series underneath Formula 1, and having it in the same package gives the game a lower rung. It gives a player who is not ready for the front of the grid something to do that is not simply losing in a slower car.
The pairing is the kind of thing a licensed sports game should do and often does not. Codemasters had the rights to both championships and used them together.
The Schumacher Edition, and the Seventy Edition
The release came in two versions. Pre-orders got the Michael Schumacher Edition on 7 July. Everyone else got the Seventy Edition on 10 July, three days later.
Both are packaging decisions, and neither changes the game underneath. The names tell you who Codemasters thought was buying, though the source does not explain either one, and this paper will not invent a reason.
The three-day gap between them is a small thing. It is also the kind of small thing that a yearly release lives or dies on, because the audience for a licensed racing game is used to being sold the same product with a different cover.
The last independent Codemasters F1 game
F1 2020 was the final F1 game Codemasters released independently before EA bought the studio in February 2021. That is a fact about the business, not the design, but it is hard to separate from the game once you know it.
Read the additions again with that in mind. My Team, split screen, Stadia. A studio spending its last solo year on a licensed series and spending it on structure rather than polish alone. That is a good instinct, and it is why F1 2020 holds up better than a lot of yearly entries.
The delisting is the other half of the story. The console versions went by the end of May 2022 and the Steam version followed in March 2023. A game that was the last of one era and the first of another is no longer on sale where it launched.
What the 8.6 actually means
An 8.6 is a strong score, and it is the right one here. F1 2020 does the yearly job well and then does more than the yearly job.
The parts that matter most are My Team and split screen. My Team is the one that will keep a solo player busy for a full season and then another. Split screen is the one that will get a second person into the room. Everything else — the twenty-two circuits, the third-person perspective, the single player and multiplayer modes — is the floor the game stands on, and the floor is solid.
The parts that matter least are the edition names. A cover and a three-day head start are not features. They are marketing, and they should not move the number.
The real judgment is this: F1 2020 is a licensed sports game that added two things the series had never had and one platform it had never reached, in a year when the actual championship could not be run as planned. It shipped the season that was supposed to happen. It let you run a team that did not exist. And it let you hand a controller to someone sitting next to you.
That is a lot for one yearly release. The delisting is a shame, and the Stadia version has not aged into anything more than a curiosity, but neither changes what the game was when it arrived. On this paper’s reading, F1 2020 is the high point of the Codemasters run, and it is the one to remember when the yearly cycle rolls around again.
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