3DClouds has solidified itself as a talented group of individuals who are absolutely passionate about racing games, but have always been hampered by their projects being limited by a low production budget or being tied to a (most often underwhelming) license. With Formula Legends, the Italian studio has been given the chance to come up with something more robust, and a lot more special. A racing game including basically every single notable era in Formula 1 history, complete with multiple career modes for each decade? Yep, that piqued my interest right away.

You can race in Monaco. It wouldn’t be a Formula 1 game without it.

One thing that might deceive you from the getgo is the fact that, despite its somewhat cartoonish looks, Formula Legends isn’t exactly what I’d consider to be an overly accessible or fully arcadey title. Granted, it’s not the same kind of deep simulation as the F1 games from Codemasters, but it lies in between that realm and that old kid-friendly F1 Race Stars released back in 2012. Races are a bit shorter (though still lasting for at least 9 laps), physics are realistic in terms of steering (but thankfully not that realistic in terms of collision), and cars follow closely the technology and limitations set by the era they were built on. That means that older cars are slower but harder to drive, whilst newer cars are hybrids, featuring KERS and DRS systems.

If there’s one thing where Formula Legends excels at, that’s the sheer ludicrous amount of content it has to offer. From the 1960s to the mid-2020s, every single F1 era is featured, with unlicensed versions of each car and pilot being just close enough to their real counterparts for you to clearly know who you’re driving as. Tracks are also a close approximation of what their real versions are, albeit a bit smaller, with your cars also being a bit smaller, making some tracks, such as Monaco, feel less atrocious to deal with. The kicker is that most content is actually locked at first, and you gotta work surprisingly hard to access everything Formula Legends has to offer.

It goes without saying: the older the F1 car, the harder it is to drive it.

It’s not as easy as unlocking content in a Mario Kart game. Formula Legends gives you access to at least two or three drivers per era, but they’re usually the lesser known or relevant guys from each category. For instance, when it comes to current F1, you don’t start off with Hamilton or Verstappen, but you have access to, like, Lance Stroll and stuff. You gotta complete milestones and win tournaments in order to unlock the really important drivers, new tracks, and even some new tournaments. That means you gotta complete competitions in all difficulty settings, and while that’s not as hard as it initially feels, there are some balancing issues worth pointing out.

The main one is the car maintenance system, which is always toggle on during career races. Simply put, your ride deteriorates tires, fuel and integrity faster than an old FIAT, to the point you will almost always need to pit at least twice per race, with the last pit always feeling unnecessary and frustrating, as you’ll usually have to do so with just one or two laps to go. It makes no sense for this degradation to happen so fast, it’s almost as if the cars were made from the same materials the people at Hyrule used to forge their swords in Breath of the Wild.

You need to perform some QTEs while pit stopping. The faster you pull it off, the quicker you’ll get out of the pit.

I also feel like the game should have had at least an additional difficulty setting. It’s either way too easy, or way too punitive. I don’t think there is a middle-of-the-road setting that feels like the perfect learning curve for players, as the easy difficulties are downright pathetic, and the harder settings feeling like torture. It’s just a minor setback in this case, but it’s worth mentioning.

Those are just the balancing issues, but there’s more to complain about in Formula Legends, even though I really liked the gameplay loop. My biggest issue with the game is the fact it’s simply not polished when it comes to its presentation. It’s a really rough game in terms of its visuals, which, sadly, reminded me more than once that yeah, that is indeed the same team behind Race With Ryan.

The art style might be adorable (even though, as mentioned before, it’s a bit deceiving), but the overall textural quality of the assets is quite bad. Everything looks a bit too cheap, a bit too, uh, “two or three console generations ago”, and not in a way that feels like it was a deliberate artistic choice, even if it was. Furthermore, the game constantly fails to load textures onto the environment while racing, making it look like you’re playing it on minimal PC settings. Another issue lies in the sound department. The actually realistic and nostalgic engine sounds were ruined by a litany of glitches that made them disappear mid-race.

Formula Legends even features dynamic weather and rain physics.

Formula Legends is a slightly glitchy and unpolished racing game that still manages to entertain thanks to an interesting premise, an addictive gameplay loop, and a truly ungodly amount of content to unlock. I was somewhat able to overlook a handful of its balancing and visual issues because I was too concentrated on unlocking my favorite (but copyright-free) Formula 1 drivers in order to attempt the same cups in more difficult scenarios. It’s rough, but the vast majority of its issues can be patched further down the line. Its core premise and  the sheer passion put into it by its Italian developers are already too good to need any other kinds of tweaking or criticism.

Formula Legends is available now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on PS5.

A copy of Formula Legends was provided by the publisher.