I am quite the F1 fan. Well, I was until the 1st of May 1994. I may not follow the sport like I did in the ’80s and ’90s, but I do still have an interest in it, especially the history. From developer and publisher 3DClouds, comes Formula Legends, a game seeped in F1 history.

“From the golden age to the modern era, race through time in Formula Legends. Master reimagined circuits, command legendary cars, and chase glory across decades of motorsport history. A love letter to Formula racing, where speed, skill, and strategy define the champion.”

Formula Legends takes you on a historical F1 journey from the late 1960s right through to modern day. I really should get this bit out of the way first. Formula Legends is not officially licenced, this means no real cars, no real teams, no real drivers and no real circuits. What you do get are non-copyright infringing and often, quite funny approximations instead. This is also not a sim and it leans more into the arcade style, but still while dipping its toes into simulation.

As you can probably tell from the trailer and screenshots, the graphics here are on the cartoony side and Formula Legends is definitely not trying to compete with the official F1 titles from Codemasters/EA. So if you’re looking for authenticity and deep simulation, then you’re not gonna find it here. What you will find is a lighter, more fun racer that doesn’t take itself too seriously. While Formula Legends does go for a more arcade style, it still had a little bit of sim thrown in. There are different tyre compounds, fuel and damage, pit stops and even variable weather conditions. However, there are no car set-ups, no telemetries to take in and act on, etc. It’s not quite a middle ground between arcade and simulation, Formula Legends is an arcade racer that has been lightly brushed with a sim.

There aren’t a great many game modes to play. There’s Custom Mode where you can have single races and even make your own championships, and a Time Attack mode. But the main meat of the game is the Story Mode. This is where you get to drive through F1 history from the late ’60s to modern day. You don’t do full seasons (60 years of F1 history with full seasons would take a while to play through) but you do get quick races and highlights of some of F1 history’s with each “championship” not taking much longer than 30-50 minutes to complete, depending on the decade. Aside from the 1960s, which starts in the late ’60s, all of the other decades are split into early, mid and late eras, and each era has a single “championship” that lightly glosses over F1 history and iconic events… all without an official licence. As an example, the infamous Senna/Prost rivalry gets a mention, just without Senna or Prost.

The lack of official license means that you won’t be driving for Ferrari or McLaren, but you will be racing for Ferenzo, or McLauden. Don’t expect to do wheel-to-wheel racing with F1 legends like Jackie Stewart or Ayrton Senna, but you can expect to race against Jack Stewie and Byron Renna. You get the idea. This lack of licence, but kind of accuracy, applies to the circuits too. The most famous F1 countries and races are included. Brazil, Monaco, Italy, Belgium, England, Germany and so on. But the tracks themselves are not one-to-one recreations, they are recognisable likenesses instead. In Italy, you don’t race at Monza, you race at the Temple of Speed track. Monaco is here (as Riviera Streets) and it is a tight street circuit, just like real-life, but the Formula Legends version differs while still including the iconic hairpin that leads to the tunnel, even if they’re not exactly as on the real circuit. This did throw me off a first, as I’m very familiar with the real tracks and kept anticipating corners that aren’t exactly what they should be.

The advancement through the decades is great fun. As you go from the late 1960s and through to today, the cars look and feel different. The details are amazing as the cars slowly evolve from basic ’60s machines to the sleeker modern cars. Things like the safety halo and more aerodynamic wings appearing on the cars as you make your way through the decades is a nice touch. This is also applied to the tracks. The circuits evolve as the decades roll buy too. The bare apexes of the corners start to have the familiar looking stripped kerbs, the backgrounds change from simple vistas to views of modern buildings and structures, and even the track layouts themselves slightly change to fit with the more modern versions of the tracks today. The advancement through time is a great detail that adds to the whole experience.

There is so much to adore here and Formula Legends is so damn close to being a great game, so damn close. Alas, it does have several issues that ruin it… a lot. Top of my list, the car handling is bad, really bad. At first, I thought I was because I was driving 1960s cars, and it made sense that they would not be as nimble as modern cars. But even the modern cars feel very off. All of the cars suffer from sluggish understeer, all of them. And as there are no car set-ups, you can’t fix it. Did you ever play the F1 games from Psygnosis on the PlayStation in the mid ’90s. Before the analogue controller and it had that stiffness to the driving? That’s what this game feels like. The handling needs addressing as it feels 30 years old.

The AI of the opponents is awful. None of the other cars have any spatial awareness and seem to think they are driving bumper cars and not F1 cars. You’ll always come of worse from a little tap as you’ll be forced to slow down (or spin out) as the other car dashes off into the distance. There’s a penalty system if you cut corners, I don’t have an issue with this, generally speaking, but you can get a penalty for doing nothing wrong. I had one race where (due to the bad bumper car AI) I spun out and went over a corner, I got a penalty for that even though it was not my fault and I came off the worse for it. I also got a penalty for cutting a corner that slowed me down and I lost three track positions. Why would I get punished for losing positions? The penalty system is a nice idea, but it has not been implemented well here and I think the game would be better without it. Leave penalty systems for the simulations.

Sticking with the bad AI, the opponents can take slower, sharp corners much, much faster than you can. Hairpins, tight chicanes, etc, the AI flies through them and hardly slow down. You though, you’ll just end up smashing into a barrier if you try to go that fast. This means that on tighter, twisty tracks, the AI will leave you in the dust. However, the AI seems to go slow on fast corners and you can pass them like they’re standing still. I came last on the Monaco track due to the slower corners, I was not even close. But, I was lapping people on the Italy circuit because it is mostly fast corners. There’s a massive imbalance with the opponent AI that needs addressing. The weather report is very inconsistent too. More than once, before starting a race, I have had the weather say that it is currently raining, so I select wet tyres. The  the race starts and the track is bone dry with no rain. I think this may be a bug that needs fixing.

I personally think that Formula Legends would benefit greatly form a dynamic racing line, or at least a breaking zone one. Like they have in the official F1 games. I know what you’re thinking, should an arcade racer like this have driving assists? Well, it already does. You can toggle ABS and traction control on or off. You can turn on auto WRS (the game’s version of DRS). You can even change the car damage levels, tyre degradation and others. So if there already are assists in the game, quite a few too. So why not one more for the driving line/breaking? It would make this so much more playable. My final gripe, there are only 14 tracks to race on. There are multiple variations of those tracks, depending on the decade/era, but they are still the same basic track. This feels very light considering the 60 years of history to be inspired by and there are some very famous and iconic F1 races missing. There’s no multiplayer, either online or local. An arcade racer like this and no co-op play?

Out now an PC and all the consoles and with a budget price of £20. Formula Legends has been a tough game for me to review because, it’s very nearly amazing and I honestly want to sing its praises, I want to tell you to go and buy a copy right now… but I can’t. The concept is great, the game has a lot of charm and it is clear that the devs are passionate F1 fans. But the bad handling, the awful AI, etc, I can’t ignore that and those two major negatives alone ruin the game. I hope that the devs are listening to feedback and planning to act on it. Formula Legends could be great, the best racer of 2025 because the potential is there. But as released, it an average title needs fixing, it needs a pitstop.