Formula Legends has released a lot of DLC, and whilst some of them are purely additional teams, the new eras and especially the new tracks were very welcome additions. Their first official licence, Formula E, blasts all that out of the pit lane. For £7.99, we get six new official tracks, the current 10 teams and their drivers, and a selection of new gameplay mechanics to enjoy. It is easily the best DLC released so far, and it’s also the best value for money.
Formula Legends’ Formula E DLC brings official versions of China, the UK, Germany, Miami, Japan, and Brazil. It’s a great mix of street tracks, real circuits, and the unique indoors/outdoors Excel Centre in the UK. These tracks are some of the trickiest in the game to date. Japan and the UK feature some very tricky switchbacks, whilst Brazil has some road bumps that will spit you into the wall if you aren’t careful. Each track comes with two attack mode strips. Drive through them to power up your attack mode, and when it’s charged to 100%, you can set it off automatically, or trigger it with a button, depending on your menu settings. Attack mode gives you lots of power, ramping up your acceleration and top speed for a set period of time. Depending on your race length, you’ll get one or two attack modes per race. The AI take them all at different times, and the DLC really conveys how much real-world Formula E often feels like high-speed chess.
Alongside attack mode is pit boost. After a pitstop, you’ll get another huge boost of power, which usually lasts for almost a full lap. Again, the AI likes to pit at different times to try and under or overcut, and this can lead to races where you aren’t quite sure how well you are doing until the very end. I really enjoy this aspect, although it can lead to quite a wide field spread when some drivers take a very sub-optimal approach. Talking of optimal, the other big addition here is battery management. There’s no fuel for our electric cars; it’s all about battery management. If you’ve already purchased the Late 20’s Era DLC pack, you’ll have experienced this gameplay mechanic already, but if not, it’s a tactical tool that you’ll need to deploy. Players move between high-performance, standard, and economy battery modes, and the battery drains at different rates as your car’s performance changes. The plan is to use all your battery as you cross the line with nothing left. You can spend extra time at a pit stop to recharge the battery, too, but in short races, that can often be a slower tactic.
With all these different modes and boosts going on, racing can feel frantic as you charge down an opponent, dive through on the inside, and then switch to economy mode to harvest energy and take a few corners of defensive driving. The AI tactics are varied, which makes for fun racing, but they do like to smash into each other a few times too many on the opening laps of the UK and Japan. It’s nothing a patch can’t solve. What feels slightly like a missed opportunity is to have the three generations of Formula E cars drive at slightly different speeds. The cars are only cosmetically different and drive identically. You also won’t be swapping cars for the Gen 1 cars. The Formula E content is also completely separate from the rest of the game, so you can’t race other cars on the Formula E tracks, for example. I’m assuming that’s a licensing thing, but it’d be amazing to open it up. My only other wishlist is that with this DLC receiving the official timing screens, it’d be amazing to watch AI races with the replay cameras. It feels like all the ingredients are there to make it happen.
Easily the best DLC of Formula Legends to date, now is the perfect time to dive into a game that has gone from strength to strength. Hats off to the developers. They’ve really turned Formula Legends into a gem.
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