F1 2021’s Deluxe Edition Revealed

You know, the other day I sat down to watch a video that was just a few minutes long, and it was just a side-by-side of real-life footage and gameplay. It is always endlessly funny the lengths some people will go to yell “Codemasters doesn’t care about F1!” because that entire video was about how Suzuka’s curbs are actually longer and there are two bollards in that final chicane after 130R. Completely ignoring that doing 140mph coming out of the second apex of Spoon Curve, you aren’t looking at the missing 15-20 meters of a curb. It was even citing that the wall at Casio Triangle is “too close,” a wall you shouldn’t care about because you have the apex of turn 16 to hit.

Anyway, speaking of driving ridiculously fast and ignoring things you are passing, the latest announcement for F1 2021 has been made ahead of Monaco this weekend. The Deluxe Edition will include a few drivers you might have heard of: Michael Schumacher, Mick’s dad; Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa, Jenson Button, David Coulthard, Alain Prost, and some bloke called Ayrton Senna. They all will be able to join your team in that My Team mode. Ok, joking aside, some legends of F1 and David Coulthard being listed as free agents to hire sounds like an interesting idea.

Is that worth $74.99? Maybe not, as they are just AI at the end of the day. Nonetheless, each driver (like them all) will be listed in the drivers market alongside current drivers, up-and-comers, and whatever we’re calling Nikita Maze(s)pin this week. Each will have their own overall rating with set asking prices for their salary, and each will have their faces showing up in menus and on podiums alongside you. For example, one of the best that is endlessly overlooked, Felipe Massa will set you back a tidy $4-million with his 86 OVR. For the same price, you could get David Coulthard with an 87 OVR.

On the more expensive side, Mick’s dad Michael will cost $13-million for an OVR of 94. This is where I start getting my little angry hat on about the online discourse surrounding the game, it is a similar story with Ayrton Senna. Senna is often cited as the greatest driver of all time, with his death in Imola bringing great sorrow and introspection to every driver’s thoughts of the man. So when F1 uses AWS (Amazon’s magic number machine) to rate drivers throughout history, or F1 games use rating systems, snippety fans start arguing with bitterness and hatred that X is better than Y, “because… shut up!”

Hands down, I know there will be some discussion on the internet right now or in the near future that Alain Prost being rated 93 to Senna’s 94 is wrong. As if the rating matters of some fictional version of one dead man and one wise man that is still integral to Renault’s current-day product. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t. If you are paying a fictional version of Senna $12-million then the following year Prost is given $11-million, they don’t see it because it is a game.

It is just like everyone saying “Well, now this is FIFA Ultimate Team” because there are numbers next to drivers, as if that isn’t already a thing in My Team in F1 2020. This isn’t an EA change, and before it is stated “why [are] you defending EA?” I’m not, I’m stating facts against shotgun-like hatred over things that don’t matter. I don’t see why we need to add the legends of F1 into the My Team mode, never mind making it a pre-order or Deluxe Edition bonus. However, if you want to go right ahead. As I wrote at length yesterday, if it is a single-player game or mode, it doesn’t matter what someone else thinks.

The final two of these are 2009 driver’s champion Jenson Button with an OVR of 90 and a salary of $6-million, alongside 2016 driver’s champion and son of 1982 champion Keke Rosberg, Nico Rosberg. Nico will also set you back $6-million for a rating of 89. Of course, with the addition of Nico several (hundred) comments are about “giving Lewis PTSD,” once again as if AI will be rattled over nothing. Though they’d argue it is a joke, these same people are saying nothing about Michael’s in-game return being affected by Alonso’s return to Renault. It is an inconsistent joke if I’ve ever seen one.

As we previously covered when the game was announced a couple of months ago now, the (digital) Deluxe Edition will also include in-game items you can customize. You’ll also receive 18,000 “PitCoins” the microtransaction currency introduced last year (I believe), priority access three days before release, and more in-game items that are inspired by the Braking Point story. The Standard Edition comes with the Braking Point “content” and 5,000 of the microtransaction currency/”PitCoins.” We’ve yet to see more details on the Braking Point addition to the series, though we’re told that this will be coming soon. F1 2021 will release on July the 16th, later this year.