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Talking F1 2021 with Senior Creative Director at EA, Lee Mather | The Traxion.GG Podcast

On this week’s Traxion.GG Podcast – Season 2, Episode 5 – Tom sat down with Lee Mather, Senior Creative Director at Electronic Arts, to talk about the new Formula 1 video game that will be out soon. Traxion has been covering F1 2021 with some early access for a few weeks now, detailing a bunch…Continue reading “Talking F1 2021 with Senior Creative Director at EA, Lee Mather | The Traxion.GG Podcast”»

Talking F1 2021 with Senior Creative Director at EA, Lee Mather | The Traxion.GG Podcast

On this week’s Traxion.GG Podcast – Season 2, Episode 5 – Tom sat down with Lee Mather, Senior Creative Director at Electronic Arts, to talk about the new Formula 1 video game that will be out soon.

Traxion has been covering F1 2021 with some early access for a few weeks now, detailing a bunch of the new features that will grace the new game. They’ll talk about all of that, Mather’s background in the Codemasters F1 games, what goes into making these games and a whole lot more in just under 30 minutes.

The new game releases on 16th July, but the new Traxion.GG Podcast is available now! Let us know if you’re excited about the new game in the comments below.

Hosted by Thomas Harrison-Lord with special guest Lee Mather.

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Below is the full transcript of this episode. It’s auto-generated, hence why it’s completely random…

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Hello and welcome to Traxion.gg podcast. We have a very special episode for you this week is joining us easily. May the senior creative director at EA. We’re going to be talking about formula 1 20 21, the upcoming game enjoy. Well, thank you very much for joining us Lee, looking forward to discussing for minimum 20, 21. It’s very much appreciated. Uh, so let’s get started. First of all, how are you feeling now that they’ve released of the game is rapidly approaching?

Lee Mather:

Yeah, I’m excited. It’s the same every year. It never goes away. That feeling of excitement, uh, obviously there’s the previews or is what the say or the previous go that the review scores and then the farm, you know, how the fans are excited to buy the game and how it’s received. You know, it’s always exciting. And obviously with such a significantly new feature with break your point that yeah. Somebody to be really excited about. I can’t wait to see how people react to that.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Oh, well, yes. Thank you for mentioning that feature. I’m very much looking forward to that. I suppose we’ll cover that later on in our chat, but for now, I guess when it comes to the pre-production of each game on a yearly cycle, I’d like to know when you start thinking about what features to implement in each release.

Lee Mather:

Well, I mean, what’s, to be included in the next game has been, we thought about two, three years ago. It’s what’s in the theories many years in advance now, uh, as you know, you know, we started the deal with formula one to retain the license for, for a significant amount of time again, and we have a roadmap for what we want to do. We have flexibility in there and things come and go based on when certain tech comes available to us or extra data that we maybe didn’t have access to, but we’ve always got a pretty clear picture of, of what we’re doing during that

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Nutcase. Then, uh, the list of new features, tweaks and improvements in the 2021 game is gargantuan. How’d you go about prioritizing what to include?

Lee Mather:

Yeah, it’s um, it’s quite a long process to be honest. So I would say the easy part is me and the rest of the designers and, uh, you know, getting together with all the crazy ideas and things we want to do, then obviously there’s the business direction. There’s what do we want to achieve as a company? Where do we want to take the franchise in the future? What areas do we think? You know, the fans will be really excited by what to the marketing team get excited by. And then there’s obviously involving the production team who then have their input into, well, what’s achievable, you know, can we achieve that in the time available to us? And then if we can achieve it, can we achieve it to the quality that we require of it? You know, there’s no point in doing something if we can’t do it to a standard that we’re happy with. So it’s, it’s a process that takes quite a long period of time, but a lot of people and, um, it’s something that we are so many, we’ve got, got quite good at it now, I think,

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Well, I think you’ve got pretty good at that by now actually, uh, just how many F1 games have you worked? All of

Lee Mather:

Them. Yeah. Yeah. So the first one I worked on was 2010,

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Right. So 11 years. Wow. That was some terrible quick maths, but

Lee Mather:

Yeah, so we were working on FM 2010 in 2008.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Right. Okay. And so with all that in mind and with all of your experience, is there any one feature in F1 20, 21? That’s your favorite?

Lee Mather:

I mean, personally, I’m really looking forward to playing, to play Curry with a friend. I think that’s something that we’ve wanted to having a series of sort of time. If you remember back on the previous job, we did have the ability to play with a friend as a, as a two-player experience, but it was just literally the racing and the ability to have that now cooperatively or competitively is something I’m really excited about. So I’ve got friends who are into formula one, but they’ve never really played the game that much it’s, I will now I’m looking forward to being able to play with them and something which I found really, really impressive through through the lockdowns, which is a horrible thing, right? Is that some of my friends who’ve maybe dropped off gaming, have come back to it and we’ve spent the evening bracing together and chatting and playing call of duty. And I think that’s something that’s now going to continue. And that’s what I’m really looking forward to be able to do that.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. You see the two play career for two, two opportunities for me, like one of these sort of almost handholding or showing a friend now, listen, this is how their phone works. FM game works is you can do the Korea that’s work together or, you know, you can just be a very competitive play against each other though. When you’re playing with friends, would you be with them or would you be in a separate rival team? Do you think?

Lee Mather:

Do you know what like depends. And this sounds terrible. It depends on play with, yeah. I want a strong teammate. I don’t want somebody who’s dead weight to the team. So I’d certainly be looking for a, it depends who it is. If it’s Dave Greco, for example, he’s on my team all the time, all the way. Cause he’s going to be the guy who’s taking the wins that I’ll be following. I’ll be playing the second, uh, second driver role. But yeah, I’ve got other friends who are, uh, I’d rather see that progress in a different team to be fair.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah, that sounds really interesting. And I think I remember a few years ago playing through a cop season online with a friend, but I’ve having the career element where you can look at the car R and D and face the press as well, adds another level to it. And speaking of another level to things let’s touch upon what you’ve already mentioned briefly, which is breaking point, the big story and narrative driven feature for F1 2021. And what I’d like to know is how long has it taken to get to this point?

Lee Mather:

Yeah, sorry. In terms of how long it’s taken. This goes back to 2018 for us when we started working on the FTE fee to series, you know, for 2019. And it’s one of those things where, you know, you’ve got to put the building blocks in place before you can get to where we are today. There’s no, there’s no easy route do what we did today. So that was, we needed in the first place. You know, you can’t build a story and a journey if you don’t have the building blocks. And F two is the starting point for the majority of the formula, one drivers these days, you know, they gain through formula two. So formula two was important to us and then the ability to do multiple seasons as well. So, you know, you need that career journey from F two F1. And then as you say, the two seasons in F1.

Lee Mather:

So without that, you know, we didn’t feel that we could build a strong, compelling story. And then it’s funny that, you know, we’re a studio that made racing games. Uh, so when we did the have to feed a series, obviously there was some nervousness amongst ourselves and, you know, can we turn ourselves into a studio that could do racing games and a narrative mode as well. And obviously it was really well-received, you know, we thought Devin was cast perfectly what we saw, what we did, but now you say you’d never know detail it’s out there and, and Devon went down so well. And then obviously we started work on what we’ve got now in 2021, uh, you know, two years ago, uh, off the back of, of 2019. So the team split. So the team that was working on that, I was obviously interested for a longer period of time.

Lee Mather:

So it’s taken a long grownup to get to where we are with this. And so we partner with professional writers and a, you know, a team that’s created all of the CGI first. So, you know, we weren’t going to do it until we could do it to a really high standard. And then what’s the drive to survive, came along, inspired us even more with some of the cool stuff that we saw in drive to survive. And that’s broadened the appeal that I think people who want strive to survival instantly look at this and go, wow, I can actually know experience that and, and be part of it as well. I think that’s, that’s been really exciting.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. So I really enjoyed the small, uh, story element you had in F1 2019 for the formula two elements. But of course it was a bit brief. I think it’s fair to say that breaking point, um, is much more in depth than that. Is that correct? Yeah.

Lee Mather:

Oh yeah. Very much so. So, um, that was purely just the F two. It was a, we call it the F to feed it with the fetus series that we did there. Uh, this is a fully fledged story. So this is taking the journey of, you know, Aiden Jackson coming into the world of formula one from formula two off the back of his championship in half to you’ve got his, his teammates who will, it will be up against Casper Ackerman. Who’s a slightly more mature formula. One driver who’s reaching the point in his career where he’s not sure whether he should still be in the sports. He still wants to be taken wins, but he feels like the team of maybe siding with the younger driver. He’s not getting the parts, he’s not getting the backing that he deserves. So he’s getting a bit, JDB all of that. And then obviously you’ve got Devin in there who can see this and these capitalizing on it by playing them off each other and stirring things up. So it’s, um, it’s really nice to be able to not only tell that story, but present it in such a strong visual

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Way. Yeah. That sounds excellent. And really in depth. And certainly it will be the very first thing I play when I get the hands on the game next month. So looking forward to it and speaking of things that were exciting for me anyway, the personal favorite element in F1 2020 was the addition of mighty mode, uh, which was very well received. So how do you feel when something you’ve worked on for many years is so well received and how do you take things to the next level?

Lee Mather:

Yeah, that, to be honest, that was one of the most nerve wracking things we’ve done in some time, because it’s something that we’ve always had in mind from a very, very long time back. And, and if you sort of heard any of the interviews I did last year, we spoke about again building blocks and the things that had to be in place for us to be able to do something on the scale of my team. Um, so that was really daunting. We were really confident that it was going to go down well, cause we thought it was, it was just what we want. It was just what the game needed, really fresh and things up and gave two great options for how you progress your career here. Some people want a much closer to F1 experience. Some players do what that freedom to actually, you know, mix things up a little bit and run their own team.

Lee Mather:

So that, that was, um, yeah, it was a super exciting for us. And again, like, as you say, how do we mix things up from there and how do we take things to the next level? I think if you see the change in direction a little bit each year, you know, there’s no, we don’t want to keep pushing the same things every year. There’s other areas of the game that we can expand upon. So always servicing players who are big fans of things like driver career or my team, but while bringing in other areas as well, which we also believe there’ll be big fans of, I mean, some that we’ve spoken about many times with some of the fans who are, you would consider hardcore. I also want a change from that. They don’t want to be constantly on the edge doing everything to the absolute nth degree. Sometimes they want to sit back and have a bit of fun as well, and they want to do something that’s a little more chill than it’ll more relaxing. And that’s where something like breaking point comes in for players like that. And then again, we’ve also added new things into my team to keep that moving along the shear, keeping fresh with the department events. So again, more things that the player has to deal with as a team.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. Could you just quickly explain how they would work when the game launches please?

Lee Mather:

Yeah. So department events about you, you already your team, and let’s say the second driver has made a bit of a full power in front of the press. Uh, you’ve got, uh, you’ve got a handle that so you’ll be approached end game. There’ll be a point of where you’re determining whether you potentially pay somebody to deal with it, or you deal with it with a press release, or it might be something along the lines of your simulator software’s coming to the end of its license. Um, and do you want to pay the buddy to renew the license or do you take the risk that it’s going to continue running faultlessly without paying that license or it may be one of your engineers may come to you and say, so we’re, we’re finding, there’s an issue with the simulator. Some it’s starting to wear, you know, do you want to keep going and hope it doesn’t break down?

Lee Mather:

And again, it’s those, those points of decision, which can determine what happens over the course of the next few races for the team. So it could have a financial impact. It could have a drive, a motivation impact. You know, this is what I mentioned as the driver focus stat for the, for the drivers now. And focus is something that you could impact by not actively doing the right thing for your teammate. You know? So you might, uh, your teammate might be tired, might be ready for a bit of a break. And you might say, well, there’s a press event tomorrow night. Do you want that? Or know you asked if you want to send them on a press event and you say yes, but my demotivate them because they weren’t ready for that. So again, that, that reduces their focus and their ability to perform at their best level. So again, as we know all previous games, there’s so many systems all tied together and everything impacts on, on everything else.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Well, it certainly sounds like a handful. They’re trying to make everything work together across the different modes. So rather than rather you than me, but it seems to be working well so far, I wasn’t going to touch upon this or I’ll talk about this, but I guess I will now. Um, and that is how you’ve rejuvenated the research development within the game. Uh, you’ve got the new quick practice, which is super for those players who have played multiple seasons across many of the games, a certain point. They can now just speed things up and still get development points. And then there’s also things like with the parts, do you want it really quick, but with a high chance of it failing or do you want it a bit slower, but it will definitely be ready to fit on the couch with no problems. So could you just talk through what you’ve been doing with the, the research and development and practice programs?

Lee Mather:

So I think you kind of answered the question quite well. You selfie with [inaudible] as well. Yeah, yeah, no, you’re definitely, you kind of hit the nail on the head with, um, you know, when you’ve played multiple seasons, there’s some elements you might want to engage with slightly differently. And that’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to give the player the, the option to change the way that they engage with some of those sessions. As we, as we’ve said, since 2016, when we bought practice programs and a race weekend, isn’t just qualifying and the race and the practice sessions are equally as important. And we will, what we’ve always wanted to give the players something interesting and exciting to do in practice that mirrored the similar sort of things that the teams doing formula one, but also gave them benefit in the game. And they’ve been in place since 2016 and the RPG skills, tree style R and D has been in there for some time now.

Lee Mather:

And we knew again, that was time to freshen that up and change the structure, change the way it plays, but also give the player the choice as to whether they always want to take part in it. But as you say, it’s, it’s important that there’s, uh, there’s, there’s gameplay elements tied to that. There’s no interest in just skipping something and simulating straight through it. When you give the player the chance to engage in that session and take the risk of rushing some, um, you know, on track things or they don’t get the parts delivered or they don’t get the development boosts. So in development boost is another new element we’ve added there as well, and they’re stackable boosts. So it may be, you’ve got a team that’s got particularly poor arrow. So you might just always focus on arrow tasks and get the development boosts to drive the cost down of developing arrow components. So again, more things to consider more things to engage with, and again, it freshens up those sessions and gives you, it gives you new targets and goals.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah, I guess that’s a another in the long, long list of new additions and features for this year. And speaking of new additions of features this year, how has it been working with the extra headroom of the PS five and X-Box series X in terms of the power, how is developing on these new systems been for you?

Lee Mather:

Yeah, so, I mean, that’s the one very much for the tech guys. I mean, they, they reveled that stuff. Um, I believe we have a team of obviously, yeah, there’s a team of people that like the render team, obviously who they spend their entire life, they’re looking at the latest technology and the latest ways that they can improve visuals. And then that’s something that benefits, you know, across, across the company. Um, but for us, it’s the first time we’ve ever released on previous our next gen. So in current next gen, so that’s a first for us. So scaling the engine in such a way that we’re able to cover both has obviously been something that the team have focused on quite significantly and the same with multiplayer as well, because we want to cross gen play to be a thing that we could as well.

Lee Mather:

So PS4 and pairs, five players could play together and X-Box series and X-Box one players can play together. So that was really important to us. So there were two major threads for the tech, which are obviously scalable, visual, scalable tech that we could make sure that both generations of players get exactly the same experience, but there are benefits to playing on the next gen platform. So you’ll get that in the visuals. You’ll get that in the ability to have performance versus visual, uh, frame rates, near selection. So if you want to run 120 FPS, you can do that, but you can run it 60 and at a, at a high resolution, but with, you know, more particle effects or whatever, or improve distance, uh, trees and the draw distance adjustments here. So there’s many ways that we can move it round to give the player a different experience. But obviously the, we mentioned damage very brief. The damage model is a, again, visually more striking on the next gen platforms because we can do more with the physics and how we model things like the tire shredding and the tidal lamination. Very impressive. Yeah. So those are the areas, but basically the players will get exactly the same game, play. The game plays exactly the same, but the visuals and the, obviously the performance is where the next gen platforms, you know, step up and obviously the loading times yet they’re, non-existent

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. Looking forward to those. I’ve seen some of the racing games where they’re really in times of just so rapid on PS five, for example, it is such a breeze. And thank you for including the cross-generational a multi-player, that’s very helpful for my personal group of friends. Uh, you know, we play predominantly in a PlayStation. Some of the, everybody has a PS five yet, but we can still buy the game and play it together. So thank you. That’s, that’s really good. And it was very important for us. Yeah, that’s great. And it works well, some of the recent games that we tried, so that’s, that’s, that’s a huge help for everybody to jump on board. Isn’t it? Um, I’d like to touch upon the way the cars react to curbs. When I played the preview build of the game, it felt much more impactful. Was that something that the top of the wishlist from a physics point of view?

Lee Mather:

Yeah. So we’ve, we’ve got a team of, uh, physics guys who are always looking at ways to improve areas of the physics and each year they’ll sort of pick some of the areas that I think that we can do more. And Dave Greco, obviously our lead hadn’t been guys got some great ideas as to what he wants to improve on as well. And it’s funny, you mentioned that because that’s actually how they’ve remodeled the bump stops. So its curves obviously have that impact because of the highly impacts on the curve. You are more likely to hit the bump stops and, and that’s what the change is there actually. So that’s in the suspension, it’s changed the way that model, the bump stops, right?

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. 10, six at PACU. For me, it was really different and I really enjoyed it, that new feeling.

Lee Mather:

Yeah. There’s also changes to the tire model as well. So it’s now pushed a little bit closer to reality again. So you’ll find the car feels more nimble modality, but a little more edgy as well. And there will be that moment of, of movements in the car and we’ve worked together on making sure that that’s catchable, but again, the amount of time you’ll lose is obviously significant. So we’ve, we’ve pushed that even further. Again, we can lean on some of the assists for the players who may be required some assistance so that we can still make the game accessible to the player who wants that experience. But to the player played, you know, in a way Laura is a high-impact user, they can really get that movement and feel in the car and that, that sort of extra nimble field that we’ve added this year. Yeah.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Actually, let’s just briefly discuss the UI. Cause this year it’s been completely revised along with some, uh, new assists and accessibility options. I think it’s very easy sometimes to be sort of trapped in the hubris of a hardcore simulation player with a wheel. But of course, with, especially with the formula one franchise, there are lots of people who still take it very seriously, but maybe need some assistance to get going or use a controller. So would you agree, one of the big features this year is to broaden the scope and the ease of use of certain systems.

Lee Mather:

Oh, very much so. Uh, so then which we’ve been working on probably over the last two or three years, and we’ve been very aware of is the track experience in formula one is obviously challenging as it all racing games. I mean, personally I struggled with motorbike games. I liked the idea of them. I liked played them, but again, it’s that learning the tipping point and it’s very, it’s like, you know, you arrive at a corner and if you’re wrong, you’re not coming back from it. So, you know, those assists would help me in a game like that. Uh, but we’re also aware that it’s not just the track experience. It’s the vast suite of options that you have in formula one as well, that can intimidate people. And that’s why the casual that we bought in last year strips out some of the options that are no longer relevant to somebody who wants to play the game at that level. And I think, you know, everybody should be able to experience formula one. The fans are broad and of all ages and, and spectrum. So we want to make sure that everybody can play and experience the game. And it’s not the ever ongoing argument of well, people shouldn’t play video games that easy it’s like people should play video games, however they want to play. Exactly.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Exactly. I couldn’t agree more with that. And especially at traction here, we’re trying to cover like PC console, mobile controller and wheel. It doesn’t matter what your preference is. We hopefully cover the recent game that suits your abilities, our equipment. Um, but aside from that, I’d also like to touch on another thing I noticed when playing the preview and Nazis the sound, it feels like a, another big step forward for me. Uh, I can hear something like the turbo whistle or the, the wine of the hybrid system. And then I notice the sound reverberates and around the walls of a, a street circuit. So is that, that must have been a really big project for this year. Correct.

Lee Mather:

So again, you’ve, you’ve identified something quite interesting there that the wine that you mentioned is, um, so I spoke to the audio guys this morning, um, just to get it out there. Yeah. So I told him to get a clear picture of what they’ve done with the audio this year. Cause I know obviously with COVID, we’ve not been able to rerecord cars this year, every year, every year we get out those, the pre-season tests, we strap mikes on the cars and we capture the audio. Um, thankfully we’ve got years and years of audio now. Um, and the changes this year that we’ve been the most notable would probably be in the exhaust more than anything. Cause the engines haven’t changed, but obviously they make significant changes in those areas. But uh, through the, the, the audio that we’ve got, we’ve been able to identify that this year, the transmission is actually generating a lot more noise than previous years.

Lee Mather:

So as you say, it could be turbo wine could be gearbox it’s it’s transmission wine. So that’s why the changes in the audio has come from. And that’s why it’s got that extra depth and noise to it. So it’s actually in the transmission a Y that you can hear it. And that’s why that’s, um, changed the way that the audio is for the engines. We’ve also added some extra options as well. So the player can now change the mix. So if you’re somebody who watches for me to one on TV and goes, why doesn’t the game sound like that while you can make it sound like that? Because that’s what you perceive for me to want to sound like if you’re somebody who’s been to the race and you stood at the racetrack, you know, it sounds nothing like it sounds like on TV, so you can change the mix. We’ve also added the ability now for players who want to raise in the cockpit VA to change the mix again. So it sounds more like you’re in a crash helmet.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Oh, that’s really neat. All right. So transmission wine though is hearing. Yeah, I think it’s really stark, especially if you play effluent 2020, and then 2021, the differences is large. Then it really adds to the authenticity of this, this new sound. Um, we’ve talked a lot about new features and new additions, but one thing I noticed and correct me if I’m wrong here, but I don’t think there are any classic cars in this game. Uh, is that correct? And if so, what’s the thinking behind that?

Lee Mather:

Yeah, that’s, that’s correct. Um, the, the classics are taking a break this year. I think really we’ve kind of what we’ve spoken about so far. It gives, it gives us an idea of why the classics aren’t in the vast scale of what we’ve done on the rest of the game. And, you know, we, as we spoke about the costing of working out how much we’ve got time-wise and how much we’ve got to scale to build the game. So it’s a case of, well, sometimes not everything can be done at the same time. And our focus this year was obviously transitioning to next gen platforms and being able to do both generations, it was breaking points, it was play a career. And then as you say, many of the other embellishments and improvements that we’ve made to the game. So, you know, sometimes, uh, you have to make those hard decisions.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Well, I suppose there are so many new additions this year and the game is still going to be huge. So there’s plenty to play even without those vehicles we’re coming towards the end of our time together. I know you’re really busy, uh, on the promotional trail for the game. The game is going to come out and just a few weeks from when we’re talking. So I really appreciate your time as we’ve already said, but just quickly before we wrap things up, I wanted to ask you about, uh, COVID 19 and, and how the pandemic that’s been very terrible. For many, many people has affected game development. Um, I’m thinking along the lines of, you’ve already touched upon the sound recording, but, uh, there are three tracks coming post release in the form of, uh, Algarve international Emela and Jetta the street circuit. Uh, it must be difficult to capture that data or am I correct there?

Lee Mather:

So we get sent obviously the CAD data for the tracks. Uh, if lidars available, we get LIDAR data from the circuits. Are they the one that’s speed, slightly trickier, although not as much as we thought it would be is the photographer that we use is still being allowed to travel with a formula one circus. He’s still able to get out on the track and take the photos that we require. So that’s where obviously we get the photogrammetry from, for the real high detail stuff on ground, the ground cover the curves, that sort of thing. And obviously the, the sort of regional photography as well that he does for us. So we’re still being able to get the reference material for the, the tracks, uh, pretty effectively in terms of the cars and the teams are providing the cards as they have in other years. So it’s actually not been as difficult as we thought it would be obviously a new track, you know, like, like gender, obviously that was a little more challenging because that’s, isn’t there yet, at least, you know, port about an MLR is similar established race circuits that, you know, we can get great reference for.

Lee Mather:

So there’s obviously the difference in building and, you know, a straight track. That’s only there for a period of time and that’s, that’s no different to previous years. You know, we’ve had that many times, we’ve, we’ve built tracks that didn’t exist in real life. On a number of occasions. I remember when we were building Texas, uh, we watched a video of thought, I think it was driving a red bull around the dirt of tech. They constructed it. And we were just saying, well, look at the size of that hill. It’s like, you know, if we got that in the data, it’s like, yeah, we had, you know, you could see the actual scale of it as he was driving on the dirt. You know, so it’s, it’s something we we’re quite used to those building circuits that haven’t been built in real life.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

That sounds fair enough. Um, and I guess, uh, looking at the real formula one calendar, maybe it’s too late to add this in the game. Uh, you know, if not, it’s understandable, but, uh, for example, there’s two races at the red bull ring this year. Uh, when you see calendar changes due to the pandemic, you know, are you nervous? Are you ready?

Lee Mather:

And any changes worked for us. Um, and we always look at ways that we can make those changes. So I believe as far as I’m aware, we’re looking at, um, we’ve, we’ve not spoken about real season, starts a real of start at that time. Yeah. So real season start will give us the opportunity to actually, uh, you know, insert more races into the calendar in that way. So we’re, we’re looking at potentially doing that post-launch so if you play me real season start, uh, I mean, let’s say for example, they insert a race that we don’t have a circuit for. We can still add the results into real season star. So if you join after that race, you’ll still have those results present for us, a track that we don’t actually have in the game. So, you know, we’re, we’re doing everything we can to make sure we get all of those bases covered as effectively as possible. And, and real season start really helps with that.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah. Well, I was going to lead on with that question, so suggest, you know, how does the calendar changes impact the real season start, but you’ve thought of that you’ve, you’ve got it covered, which is, which is good, I guess, uh, you know, thanks again for your timely, but, um, is there anything that you’d like to mention about F 2021 that we’ve not covered yet? Uh, other than, you know, it’s out on the 16th of July or 13th, if you buy the digital deluxe edition, is that correct?

Lee Mather:

Yeah. Yeah. I think we’ve pretty much covered everything, but I’d probably say that, you know, if you pre-order it and get it on the, for the digital deluxe, you get the seven iconic formula, one drivers, which to be honest, that’s something I’m absolutely over the moon about the ability to have, you know, uh, an iconic driver like Michael [inaudible] as your teammates in my team is, is just amazing. That’s like the stuff of dreams. Isn’t it, to be honest for some years, for somebody who’s been a formula one fan for so long. Yeah. That’s incredible.

Thomas Harrison-Lord:

Yeah, that does sound cool. And I, and actually it was when I saw the features trailer, which you can, you can find on YouTube if you’ve not watched it yet. Uh, which gives you a glimpse of like Rosberg cross center and Schumacher. And it was when I saw those, I thought, oh yeah, that is, that is pretty special. Maybe I’ll have to invest in the digital deluxe edition, but, but anyway, we’ll see. Um, thanks again for your timely, uh, very best of luck with the game launch. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure. No worries. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for listening to our interview there with Lee may there about F1 20, 21. If you’re excited about the game, please do let us know in social media, it’s not attraction DG. Please do like, and subscribe on YouTube or follow subscribe on podcast networks. It’s completely free and it helps us out. And don’t forget to visit traxion.gg on a daily basis for the latest racing games, same on e-sports news and views. Thanks so much.