Last week, we asked to set off on the broken road of Days Gone Remastered and share epic moments of survival using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:
calisarah1998shares Deacon standing in the middle of a desolate street
itsRyanUnicombshares a look up at Deacon’s motorcycle and the night sky
tulippooh3shares Deacon walking through a sundrenched field
EmperorHalshares a profile portrait of Boozer and his head tattoo
Holden88805shares a look the back of Deacon’s vest and weapons
r0gues_fr0ntiershares a look at a Freaker through a broken car window
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
THEME: Days Gone Remastered – Deacon SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on May 7, 2025
Next week, we’re sticking by Deacon’s side in Days Gone Remastered. Share portraits of Deacon using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
As the May 8 release date for the PS5 and PS VR2 title The Midnight Walk creeps ever closer, we grow more and more excited to experience this unique dark first-person adventure. Making its debut at State of Play late last year, the game showcased an incredible hand-crafted “cozy horror” world filled with deformed antiques, charming little freaks, and plenty of nightmare fuel. With the clock due to strike midnight very soon, we wanted to get another look at what the game will offer–and savor more of the game’s gorgeous stop-motion inspired visuals in the process. We sat down with its creator, Swedish studio Moonhood for a walk through a new section of the game.
Close your eyes to sense the world around you
You begin The Midnight Walk as The Burnt One, awakening in a makeshift grave you must extract yourself from. As you move down the winding road ahead and get your bearings, you learn a bit about how the world works: using matches to light fires and candles, sneaking about to escape the notice of threats, and finding and using items.
One of the most unique actions is closing your eyes to focus on hearing sounds you couldn’t sense normally–and sometimes change the environment when you open them again. On the flat screen version of the game, a button press and hold will increase the volume of important objects and dangers around you. The DualSense controller vibrates to indicate how close you are to an important object.
After your brief introductory trek, you’ll meet one of the other main figures: Potboy, a being with a stubby little body and a big, malformed head crowned by toasty fire. A touch from a lit match awakens him from his stasis, and he immediately flees in panic, hiding away in a large container. You’ll need to find and feed him some coal to earn his trust, and soon, you’re inseparable–well, you would be, if there weren’t so many creatures lurking in this dark world that feed upon light and fire and see Potboy as either a threat or a treat. You’re going to have to help each other out on your journey to the far-off Moon Mountain, which stands like a faraway monolith guiding you in the distance.
Meet a cast of brazier buddies
The lively, jauntily animated Pothead, being small and nimble, can squeeze into places and interact with the environment in ways the Burnt One can’t–but you’ll need to help guide him to the right spots. His flame can not only set objects alight, it also transforms parts of the landscape. Some elements, like flora, rebloom in vibrant life in response to the flame, while other obstacles dissipate or retract in apparent fear of the fire.
Much of the puzzle-solving will come from using Potboy in tandem with items or the environment in creative ways: one puzzle we were shown involved lighting a candle to lure a hungry foe away from Potboy so that he could hit some switches without fear of becoming dinner.
Eventually, you’ll meet Pothead’s friend Housy, a living abode that moves about on insect-like legs. Housy tags along on your journey and serves as a home base and collectible trove–and he looks fantastically freaky creeping along behind you. You can retreat to the safety of Housy’s insides at any time after your meeting, but you will have to go back outside eventually.
While much of The Midnight Walk pacing is relaxed, allowing you to fully savor this world’s murky, off-kilter atmosphere, you’ll still find plenty of sudden surprises that demand a rapid response. Be it a gang of crooked creatures chasing you and Potboy down a narrow path or the Molgrim — a huge cone-shaped, snaggle-toothed beast with a horrifying wail and an insatiable hunger — you’ll need to make some quick decisions to fight or flee. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor: hiding in a closet might throw a monster off your track, or sometimes just running for dear life is all you need. At other times you’ll need to make use of some tools–like the matchlock, that shoots matches at faraway candles and other contraptions. No matter what, you’ll always need to be alert, because danger is omnipresent and can strike when you least expect.
Let the night envelop you
Every moment in The Midnight Walk is full of intrigue. As you wander through dimly-lit, gnarled environments, you find yourself surrounded by objects that feel like an uneasy mix of the natural and the artificial, the direct result of the numerous real-life models and objects that the team at Moonhood have painstakingly scanned into the game and animated. “Shellphones” found throughout tell a story of a world that was once crafted and curated, now left seemingly to rot away. Even the characters that seem friendly–or, at least, not murderously aggressive– to you and Pothead have something “off” about them, like the citizens of Nobodyville whose bodies have long since been banished, leaving them as craniums with a distrust of limbed “Somebodys.”
While the game looks incredible on a normal setup, PS VR2 fully immerses you in the strange beauty of this world. Looking around and interacting with the environment is far more intuitive and immersive: for example, instead of using a button to close your eyes, you’ll be able to actually close your eyes to make use of hypersensory hearing or environment-altering power. This mechanic isn’t just used for listening. Finding “eye symbols” hidden across the world and “meditating” on them causes the environment – and sometimes monsters – to change…
Binaural sound makes every creak, flame, and roar feel more vibrant and powerful while letting you enjoy the beauty of the tense, haunting soundtrack. The developers at MoonHood were eager to tell us about how impressive the scenes we saw were on PS VR2, and we’re inclined to take their word for it. So get your matches and candles ready–you’re about to take the walk of your life.
Last month, we had breakout runaway hits, indie darlings, and a few surprises. Which game spoke to you the most? Some of the big new releases included Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Forever Skies, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered.
How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. After the polls close we will tally your votes, and announce the winner on our social channels and PlayStation.Blog.
What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? Note: re-released games don’t qualify, but remakes do. We define remakes as ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
How are nominees decided? The PlayStation Blog editorial team will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll.
Wreak havoc across the dangerous new planet Kairos when Borderlands 4 launches on September 12, 2025. I’m Graeme Timmins, Creative Director at Gearbox Entertainment—and today, the team and I are thrilled to give you our deepest ever look at some explosive, carnage-filled gameplay, all running on PlayStation 5 Pro. We’re showing off two of our four new Vault Hunters and some of their Action Skills, intense looter shooter gameplay with details on all kinds of new gear, the deadly regions you’ll explore on the all-new planet Kairos, and much more.
Following the cataclysm seen in our teaser trailer and the contentious clash of our First Look trailer, the tyrannical Timekeeper is here to admonish us as we meet our four new Vault Hunters in this pulse-pounding Gameplay Trailer:
Ever since Gearbox created the looter shooter genre nearly 16 years ago, we’ve continued to refine the formula, delivering more loot and action with every entry. I’ve worked on every mainline Borderlands game since starting out as Lead Level Designer on the original Borderlands, and my Gameplay Deep Dive co-op buddy Anthony Nicholson, Senior Project Producer on Borderlands 4, has been with the series since Borderlands 2. With Borderlands 4, we truly believe that this team is creating the best, most ambitious Borderlands game to date.
This all-new adventure is the perfect entry point for new players—and for existing players, you’ll find the awesome gameplay you know and love cranked up to 11, with new movement abilities, our biggest and baddest enemies yet, a vast new planet to explore, and of course, billions of guns to loot.
Wreak havoc as a Vault Hunter
The Borderlands games are set in an unforgiving sci-fi universe, where life is cheap and guns are plentiful. You play as a Vault Hunter, a badass mercenary on the hunt for alien Vaults, wielding wild guns and devastating abilities. In the Gameplay Deep Dive, we’re showing off two of our four all-new Vault Hunters: Vex the Siren, who uses supernatural phase energy to empower herself and can conjure deadly minions, and Rafa the Exo-Soldier, a former Tediore trooper who wears an experimental exo-suit capable of digistructing an arsenal of weapons. Personally, I’m a huge fan of Vex’s spectral feline familiar Trouble, who can absolutely maul any enemies that try to attack my flank during a shootout.
Each Vault Hunter class in Borderlands 4 offers a unique playstyle that empowers you to choose from three signature abilities that serve as your Action Skills. We’re delivering our most advanced skill tree system yet, letting you enhance your Action Skills with special augments and capstone abilities. You can choose from three branching paths of passive abilities that enable an incredibly wide variety of distinctly powerful builds.
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Each Vault Hunter also has a unique Trait that shapes their playstyle; for instance, Vex’s Trait makes her Action Skills attune to the element of the weapon she currently has equipped, incentivizing an arsenal of elemental weapons to shock, burn, or freeze enemies based on the situation.
One of our guiding design principles for our Vault Hunters is that playing as them should make you feel like an unstoppable force on the battlefield, that unleashes Action Skills to control the flow of combat and blast through enemies with an arsenal of outrageous weaponry. You can also flex even more skill expression during battle with a wide range of new movement abilities, including gliding, dashing, double-jumping, and point-grappling.
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Welcome to Kairos
In Borderlands 4, we’re dropping you into the middle of Kairos, an all-new planet rife with warring factions, deadly fauna, and desperate inhabitants. For thousands of years, the oppressive Timekeeper kept the planet hidden, controlling its inhabitants with cybernetic implants called Bolts and an army of synthetic soldiers known as The Order.
But six years before the events of Borderlands 4, a rogue moon suddenly teleported into Kairos’ orbit, shattering the planet’s protective veil and plunging the world into chaos. Now the denizens of Kairos have started rising up, with some even ripping their Bolts right out of their skulls. That’s the situation our four Vault Hunters have crash-landed into: a planet with a population primed to explode, and you’re the spark.
In your quest to ignite a revolution against the Timekeeper, you’ll meet unique factions that you’ll need to recruit to your cause, including a slew of new characters and some returning faces that’ll be instantly familiar to Borderlands fans. We’re delighted to be bringing back fan-favorite characters like Claptrap, Moxxi, and Zane—but we’re also so excited for you to meet some of the charming allies and loathsome adversaries that await you on Kairos.
To help you get around Kairos’ sprawling, seamlessly connected spaces, you can now summon a personalized Digirunner vehicle at will and jet-boost your way towards the horizon. We’ve built a world that exudes craftsmanship and encourages you to explore it at your own pace—with the option for guidance provided by your ECHO-4 robot buddy—as you take on new enemies, encounter world events, and discover hidden treasures.
From Order patrols to world bosses, there’s always something to shoot and loot as you explore Kairos. You’ll also come across short gameplay experiences and new activities that auto-grant a tracked mission whenever you discover them—like Silos, which house old, decommissioned Order tech that you can hijack for the Crimson Resistance with the help of ECHO-4.
Once you’ve reclaimed a Silo, it will reveal the approximate location of a Vault Key Fragment. Collect enough fragments and you’ll unlock a hidden Vault—a high level dungeon with challenging combat and serious loot. Reclaimed Silos can also be used as Fast Travel points, or you can zipline up their hacked communications balloon to start gliding through the air towards your next objective.
Wreaking havoc across Kairos is awesome alone and even better with friends—which is why we’ve made it easier than ever to jump into co-op multiplayer, whether through 2-player splitscreen or via our improved lobby system with drop-in/drop-out action for up to 4 players online, with full crossplay at launch.* Borderlands 4 is designed for co-op from the ground up, with instanced loot for each player, dynamic level scaling, individual difficulty settings, and the option to Fast Travel directly to other players to keep the party together and having fun through the whole campaign.
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Gearing up for a fight
In the new gameplay footage, you can watch us go on the offensive across the Terminus Range, where one of the Timekeeper’s generals, Vile Lictor, has been conducting nefarious experiments. We’re breaking into his secret blacksite with the help of Amara, an allied Siren and former Vault Hunter.
You can also see the destructive power of some deadly weapons from our eight unique manufacturers: Order, Ripper, Daedalus, Tediore, Maliwan, Jakobs, Vladof, and Torgue, each boasting their own devastating strengths. Longtime Borderlands fans will notice that the first three of these manufacturers are brand new, with fresh characteristics:
Order guns focus on precision with high-powered bursts
Ripper guns charge up to go fully automatic
Daedalus guns are easy-to-use and incorporate multiple ammo types
Tediore guns are reloaded by tossing them as grenades
Maliwan guns specialize in elemental damage to burn, freeze, and shock
Jakobs guns can fire bullets as fast as you can shoot with ricochets on critical hits
Vladof guns have a high rate of fire and huge magazines
Torgue guns have heavy-duty explosive rounds that can switch to sticky projectiles.
With the new Licensed Parts system, you can find guns that incorporate the behaviors and abilities from multiple manufacturers into a single weapon, fueling our wildest loot variety yet. In addition, Borderlands 4 reworks our approach to the iconic Legendary guns that have unique effects you won’t find on any other piece of gear. In Borderlands 3, Legendaries dropped too often, devaluing them and making other loot feel less special overall. In our new system, not only do all guns feel great, but now Legendary drops will truly be special events.
We’ve added the magic back to our loot chase, and we know you’ll love grinding all the great gear on Kairos. Farming coveted gear is much more intuitive now that you can replay entire missions or use Moxxi’s Big Encore Machine to fight bosses whenever you’d like. Speaking of bosses, Borderlands 4 makes them bigger and better than ever—like Vile Lictor himself, a monstrosity you can glimpse at the end of the Gameplay Deep Dive. These boss fights will put all your new skills, gear, and abilities to the ultimate test, requiring that you think quickly and adapt to whatever each boss throws at you.
There are also new gear slots to specialize your builds even further:
Ordnance, a shared slot for Grenades and Heavy Weapons like rocket launchers, recharges on a cooldown to keep you locked and loaded during especially tough encounters
Enhancements, which replace the Artifact slot seen in Borderlands 3, augment your weapons based on their manufacturer, rewarding you with extra firepower when you optimize your gear loadout
Repkits add utility by letting you heal yourself or activate temporary buffs to help turn the tide of an intense battle
We’re incredibly excited to unveil more Borderlands 4 when we host our first hands-on event this June, with tons to show off ahead of the full launch on September 12. Wishlist Borderlands 4 now and stay tuned as we reveal more in the coming months!
*Online play requires an Internet connection, a SHiFT Account, and a PlayStation Plus subscription. Terms apply.
Get ready to light up the stage like never before – Smash Drums is launching on PlayStation VR2 on May 15, and it’s more than just an upgrade.
We’ve fine-tuned the experience to take full advantage of PS VR2’s power — from razor-sharp visuals with eye-tracked foveated rendering and native 120fps gameplay, to immersive headset haptics and adaptive triggers that bring the action to life.
Hang on to your sticks. Here’s what’s new.
Feel the upgrade: Visuals like never before
PS VR2 takes Smash Drums’ visuals to the next level. We’ve enhanced environments with richer detail and better textures, while real-time lighting and shadows bring each performance to life. New effects like heat haze above the flames crank up the spectacle, making every session an explosive ride.
Thanks to eye-tracked foveated rendering, visuals stay razor-sharp where you’re looking, allowing for more environmental detail and smoother performance. And with native 120fps in Performance mode, this is the cleanest, most responsive version of Smash Drums yet.
Enhanced Performance on PS5 Pro
Smash Drums shines on all PS5 consoles, but if you’re rocking a PS5 Pro, you’re in for an extra level of intensity. The Fidelity graphics mode delivers enhanced resolution and visual effects — all while running at a smooth 120fps, compared to 90fps on the base PS5.
Lights, camera, destruction: social mode
PS5 brings the power to not only rock harder, but look cooler doing it. Our new dynamic Social Mode features smooth first-person camera movement and cinematic third-person angles that turn every performance into a full-blown visual show on your TV.
It’s also designed for sharing — capture gameplay that looks amazing straight out of the headset. Whether you’re chasing high scores or just vibing to the beat, you can tailor what shows up on screen: display the song title at the start, hide the interface, overlay your score and leaderboard rank, or disable the dynamic camera angles for a steady shot.
Feel the rhythm, literally
Smash Drums has always been about energy, chaos, and letting loose — and on PS VR2, the physical feedback takes things up a notch.
Headset haptics let you feel the chaos when stage debris crashes into you, adding an extra layer of presence. And when you spin your sticks using the adaptive triggers, it’s not just a visual — it buzzes through your fingers, pulsing with every rotation. It’s magical.
Turn it up: Your Smash Drums soundtrack
The Standard Edition of Smash Drums features 58 rock tracks spanning punk, metal, and classic rock — delivering hours of explosive gameplay right out of the gate.
Looking to expand your setlist with more iconic hits? The Premium Edition includes all currently released song packs, featuring licensed tracks from legendary artists. Each pack adds five songs, and if you’re not ready to go Premium, you can pick and choose individual packs to upgrade your Standard Edition at your own pace.
Join the mayhem
Legions of players already love Smash Drums on other platforms, making it a VR drumming classic and the #1 top seller in this category. The PS VR2 edition takes the experience to the next level.
Whether you’re chasing leaderboard glory, vibing to the music at your own pace, or going for the Platinum Trophy, Smash Drums on PS VR2 is the loudest, hardest-hitting version yet. Wishlist now and join the mayhem when we launch on May 15.
Get ready for a deep dive on Borderlands 4! During this special State of Play, I’ll be joined by other members of the Gearbox team to share the nitty-gritty details of how you’ll wreak havoc across Kairos and take down the Timekeeper.
Catch the show live on PlayStation’s Twitch and YouTube channels on April 30 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 10pm BST / 11pm CEST.
Back at February’s State of Play, we unveiled the game’s Launch Date Trailer, which showcased a taste of the explosive action, fearsome enemies, and powerful loot. Since then, we’ve announced that Borderlands 4’s launch has moved up to September 12, 2025, meaning you’ll get to enjoy the looter shooter action even earlier!
In this upcoming State of Play, strap in with me and Anthony Nicholson, Senior Project Producer, for over 20 minutes of developer-guided gameplay, including missions, killer weapons, exciting Action Skills, new and returning characters, and more.
While you wait, check out the game’s key art, which we just revealed today, and remember to wishlist Borderlands 4 at PlayStation Store. We’ll see you on April 30.
Hey, everybody! Sid, Brett, and Tim are back this week to discuss the release date reveal and new trailer for Ghost of Yōtei. This episode also includes interviews with Doom: The Dark Ages Director Hugo Martin and Days Gone Remastered Creative and Product Lead Kevin McAllister.
Stuff We Talked About
Next week’s release highlights:
Days Gone Remastered (out today) | PS5
Forza Horizon 5 | PS5
Despelote | PS5, PS4
Days Gone Remastered — New accessibility options revealed
Onimusha 2 Samurai’s Destiny remaster — Developer Q&A with Capcom
Ghost of Yōtei — October 2 release date, new trailer revealed
F1 25 — Dev interview and new Braking Point story mode trailer
Doom: The Dark Ages — New Cosmic Realm details revealed
The Last of Us Complete — Now available on PS5
The Cast
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Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE
Brett Elston – Manager, Content Communications, SIE
Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
Last week, we asked you head to the great outdoors (inside your favorite games) and share nature-filled moments using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:
Mur4dQshares Astro Bot and a cow napping in a meadow
PattyGnandshares the girls of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage dangling their legs over a lakeside overlook
Amianan_NiRaGuBshares the Shadow-cursed lands of Baldur’s Gate 3
cenriceshares riding alongside a reflective mountainside in Neva
CamisGuishares a plant-like tortoise in God of War Ragnarök
dlazdagamingshares the northern lights shining in Snowrunner
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
THEME: Days Gone Remastered SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on April 30, 2025
Next week, we’re riding the broken road in Days Gone Remastered. Share epic moments from Deacon’s journey using the game’s new Photo Mode feature using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
Hello from id Software! This is Hugo Martin, game director on Doom: The Dark Ages, releasing May 15 on PlayStation 5—it’s right around the corner, I can’t believe it.
If you’ve been following along, you already know that Doom: The Dark Ages is a premium single-player campaign featuring three core pillars of engagement: story, combat, and exploration. I’m guessing you’re reading this because you want to hear something new, something about the game no one else has heard about. Well, I’ve got a good one for you.
We think Doom: The Dark Ages is the best Doom game we’ve ever made (but that’ll be for you to decide). We gave this everything we had, left no feature unpolished: we have 22 levels of incredible FPS single-player combat; tons of gameplay innovations like the Shield Saw, flail, and new crazy guns; and an awesome roller coaster ride of an action story to carry you through to the finish.
AND—we have huge worlds for you to explore.
One of them is totally unique for a Doom game, a space we’ve never been to but a world we’ve wanted to incorporate into the Doom universe for a while: the Cosmic Realm. You will bear witness to the cyclopean architecture of this Lovecraftian dimension as you explore its darkest secrets and battle its most insane enemies.
An unholy union between Hell and the Cosmic Realm has been formed. You’re going to have to experience the story to find out why—but this partnership has given birth to a new host of adversaries for the Slayer to confront.
Enemies like the Cosmic Baron. A twin-bladed brute, he attacks with relentless pressure, and at range he releases a flurry of psionic attacks that can block your projectiles and rip through your precious health. But fear not, because embedded in his attacks are parry windows that a skilled Doom Slayer should be able to exploit, should he or she be brave enough to stand and fight him.
All the strongest foes in Doom: The Dark Ages require this kind of aggression. You’ll weave your way through a maze of projectiles, just like in classic Doom, to then go toe-to-toe with the biggest demons we’ve ever created.
After you’ve dispatched the Cosmic Baron, be careful, because rising above the dark horizon you’ll find the powerful Cacodemon, a hybrid between the two dimensions and newly designed for this game. This floating mass of telepathic terror will immobilize you with his advanced shield attacks and cripple you with his tentacle strikes, should you allow him to get close.
But—you can counter these enemies’ assaults with a new weapon, an ancient tool from dimensions beyond our own: the Reaver Chainshot, a brutal ballistic iron mace of death.
Fire it quickly to unleash a light attack to a single foe, or hold down the trigger to charge its Chaos Sphere and unleash vicious long-range melee strikes, turning your enemies’ insides into demonic pulp. This weapon is unlike anything we’ve ever had in an id game; it brings the Doom: The Dark Ages’ fantastic melee combat to a whole new merciless level of bone-breaking destruction. The sound, the design, the visuals, this weapon is amazing and you’re gonna love using it in battle.
There are so many more secrets to reveal and legends to forge here in this new world we’ve crafted for you. I think you’ll find your time in the Cosmic Realm to be full of intrigue and bloody, bone-crunching mayhem. And it will look amazing on your PlayStation 5, featuring cutting-edge, ludicrous mode graphics powered by the all-new idTech 8.
The innovations in this latest version of idTech allow us to have more content visible on-screen than ever before—bigger spaces with longer views; more enemies to fight; more destruction; better feedback; a better overall gaming experience. We have fully dynamic lighting powered through raytracing, which has allowed us to iterate faster during development and empowered our team to make better art more efficiently. idTech 8 is a purpose-built engine with performance that’s buttery-smooth at 60 fps on PlayStation—this game will play every bit as good as it looks.
And there’s plenty more to talk about, but we wanted to give Sony fans something special as we head into launch. We cannot wait to share this experience with you. It is the biggest and most complete, epic game we have ever made at id and it plays fantastic on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro. There will be more to explore, weapons and abilities to unlock, and demons to crush in Doom: The Dark Ages when it releases on May 15. (You can also start slaying as early as May 13 if you purchase the Premium Edition!*)
From all of us at id—thank you so much for your time and continued support.
*Actual playtime depends on purchase date and applicable time zone differences, subject to possible outages.
The buzz of excitement is ramping up into a full roar as EA Sports F1 25 gets ready for lights out on May 30. And with it comes a whole paddock of improvements, tweaks, and new features to ensure unfamiliar racers and track veterans alike all feel at home. I recently had an opportunity to talk with the developers at EA Codemasters about the upcoming racing game’s newest gameplay features.
“We’re never short of feedback,” says EA Codemasters’ Creative Director Gavin Cooper. “We listen to the community and that informs a lot of our features this year.”
The wealth of voices offering reactions over the figurative team radio don’t just include the official forums and other close sources, but also Esports drivers and content creators who had the opportunity to get their hands on F1 25, early during its development.
The result is a game which has aimed to sharpen up everything from its car handling, to a glossier TV-style presentation, and enhanced real driver voice over. “Hearing the real drivers’ voices as you’re playing really brings a degree of authenticity to the experience,” says Gavin. “We’ve got almost double the number of voice lines in F1 25 that we had in F1 24, and you experience them in more context, too.” So not only can you hear directly from some of the principals, you’ll also have back and forth exchanges between the real drivers and the in-game race engineers, offering the sort of camaraderie – and tension – of the real thing.
Gavin is also keen to point out that for fans who were frustrated with the samey engine noises in the comprehensive My Team mode, that bugbear has been addressed. “You’re now able to attach the correct audio to the different engine suppliers – so depending on which supplier you pick, it’ll actually make your car sound different. That’s something I know people have wanted for a long time.”
Your very own dream team
On the subject of My Team, the popular mode has received a significant boost, designed to get fans’ hearts racing. This time, rather than being the owner-driver, you’re now the team owner having to manage a pair of drivers. “We know being an owner-driver is not authentic to the sport,” says Gavin. “But now having to manage two drivers opens up a lot of interesting decisions for the player. Previously whenever we’ve asked you to prioritise one driver over the other it wasn’t an interesting choice – you’d naturally choose yourself. Now you have to think about who’s the most important in things like contract negotiation and upgrades.”
While you’ll choose who to control on the track itself during race weekends, managing two different personalities and egos offers more complexity to juggle, on top of running the detailed Engineering, Personnel and Corporate facilities, which can also spill out into how your team, competitors and prospects perceive you. Even when added to the expanded R&D and sponsor systems which interact with perks, upgrades, and relationships, and increased control over Driver Icons to allow AI teams to recruit iconic drivers, it’s still only a selection of the additions you’ll have at your racing gloved fingertips.
Braking Point drives the narrative experience forward
Fans of Braking Point, F1’s massive story mode series, aren’t left on the starting grid, either. “We’re always looking for ways to increase the players’ impact on the narrative,” says Gavin. So now when key events happen, you have the option to choose from the two Konnersport drivers available in that scenario, resulting in various ripple effects which can not only impact some of the race objectives, but also the end of the story itself. Implementing this expansion and various branching narratives was no small task for the development team.
“We’re keeping track of the core narrative, which is supported by various other threads, subplots, and other little storylines that we deliver through the secondary narrative, like phone calls, social media and news posts,” explains Gavin. “And those different threads might be more relevant to one driver but can come back and intersect with the main story. So it’s making sure you’re still getting something that feels specific to that driver and the storylines that you’re engaging with, and still have a coherent overall narrative that everyone can enjoy. It’s difficult, but it’s been a really fun process as well.”
And when you finish Braking Point? Well, there’s a special bonus that will allow you to bring your Konnersport team directly into the Career Mode, for the first time in the series. It’s just one of the many ways F1 25 has stepped up a gear to give you a variety of flexibility in how you want to race.
“There’s a whole matrix of possibilities you can pursue in the game,” says Gavin. “You can play as an official driver, or a custom driver, but there’s also kinda an 11th team, via Konnersport or Apex. Do you still play as a custom driver on an official team, or go for an official driver? And that’s all before you even get into bringing Icons into My Team, too.”
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Immersive details at every turn
As in-depth as many of the existing modes go, the development team haven’t forgotten about the fun little extras, either. In-depth customisation means a better decal editor, there’s the ability to change driver number fonts and colours, and LIDAR scanning has provided millions of referenced data points for a more authentic look and feel for five tracks (Bahrain, Miami, Melbourne, Suzuka, and Imola), including safety barriers, fan areas, and even accurate vegetation.
And now you can also race around Silverstone, Zandvoort, and Austria in reverse track layouts in Grand Prix, Time Trial, Multiplayer, and from the second season of the Career modes. “It’s the feature that seems to catch people out the most,” smiles Gavin. “You think you know those courses, but when you actually get to play them they really do feel like brand new tracks. There’s a lot of nuance, you’re not just driving them backwards. It really spins people’s heads out a little, having a very different experience in a familiar location.”
With F1 25 taking pole year in, year out, it’s no secret that creating these games is arguably as complicated as mapping out a real-life racing campaign, with the development team split into those who work specifically on the ‘even’ year iterations of the series, and those who work on the ‘odd’ years. “We started a central team that works on the stuff that we do every year, so things like handling, AI and so on,” Gavin explains. “They still work on yearly cadence. But having that split team model is really valuable, it lets us set up all of these big features every year. It’s tricky because we overlap, and are essentially working in the game’s build at the same time, but fundamentally a lot of it comes down to good process, good communication, and the right people in the right place.”
It’s a method which, like the best F1 teams, relies on the keenest of teamwork – but comes together every year when it matters. You’ll be able to experience it all for yourself when EA Sports F1 25 launches on PS5 on May 30.
