F1 24 devs stick to EGO game engine despite calls for upgrade

In an interview with CharlieIntel, F1 24 Senior Creative Director Lee Mather disclosed that the F1 24 game engine will feature Codemasters’ EGO, with plans to build and improve it for the franchise’s future titles.

The F1 racing franchise has featured Codemasters’ own EGO engine since 2009, and modern F1 game releases, including F1 24, revive players’ concerns about gameplay restrictions caused by the EGO engine.

This concern was expanded with Unreal Engine 5’s inclusion in other Codemasters-developed games, like 2023’s EA Sports WRC, bringing graphical and feature improvements. This led players to wonder why F1 24 continues to use Codemasters’ EGO engine and whether the team plans to move away from it in the future.

In an interview with CharlieIntel, Lee Mather, Codemasters’ Senior Creative Director, explained that the team is set to continue using the EGO engine in F1 24 and future titles as having their “own tech is one of the strongest things going for the F1 title,” allowing them to do “anything and everything” they want.

Mather also emphasized that EGO is a “versatile” engine that supports every platform available right now, allowing F1 24 to cater to a wider player base, including everything from last and next-gen consoles to low-spec and high-spec PCs, each retaining adjustable performance settings depending on their capabilities.

The EGO engine allowed the team to significantly change how F1 24’s physics work in the “course of one year” without “worrying about the constraints of learning someone else’s technology.” Further, tech media sites such as Digital Foundry have recognized Codemasters’ EGO as a “strong racing engine” in the past.

After the significant F1 24 gameplay improvements were brought about by using the EGO engine, Mather emphasized they still have the “option and the opportunity to keep building upon that,” mentioning there’s a “roadmap for the coming years,” and they’re confident that their progress will be well-received.