F1 Manager 2022, which—if your memory stretches back that far—you might recall released on August 30, will no longer be releasing major updates after its next one. In a post to the game's subreddit, a Frontier community manager said that, "To ensure upcoming F1 Manager projects realise their potential," the game's next scheduled update will be the "last significant update that addresses player-reported feedback, or suggested changes and additions". The community was not thrilled.
"Any potential updates following this would be minor patches that do not noticeably affect gameplay," continues the community manager's post, and "Key reports and requests around F1 Manager 2022 from the community that are yet to be resolved" will instead be taken forward and "prioritised as we create future iterations in this franchise". Further posts from Frontier on the subreddit even describe specific, ongoing issues that won't be fixed in this game but will be addressed in future releases.
It would have been better not to say that last bit at all. It turns out that telling people you're still paying attention to their complaints, but only so you can fix them in the next game, isn't much of a crowd-pleaser. Already the subreddit is awash with fans decrying the decision, pledging not to buy another Frontier game, and pleading with the company to reverse the move.
A complaint from user xford, who says they started out "pretty forthright that I thought they'd continually improve the game," but now believes the game to be a "a disappointment and frankly a terrible way to launch a series," does a good job of summing up the disappointment (and with a lot less all-caps cursing than some other complaints).
In response to the backlash, Frontier clarified that it "will continue to support F1 Manager 2022, with multiple updates currently in the pipeline, focused on addressing the most important topics raised by the community."
"This continues with our upcoming update, which includes a number of changes and improvements, including resolving issues around Estimated Race Time calculations and fuel usage in Qualifying sessions, as well as additional updates, where required, focusing solely on improving your experience and addressing more player reports," Frontier said in a statement posted to Reddit.
"Yesterday’s post was to explain that the addition of any new significant gameplay features for F1 Manager 2022 requested by players would not be possible, but this was not clear."
Some players on Reddit are happy with the clarification, but others view the statement as a hasty walkback. Whatever the case, it's good to hear that planned support will continue because we rather liked F1 Manager 2022, giving it 79% in our review and even declaring it more interesting than watching actual F1. And it's really the only thing that makes sense for Frontier, too: Appearing to pump the brakes so hard less than two months after F1 Manager 2022 came out was an unexpected and undesired shift for a game that felt like it had potential, and I can't imagine it would've predisposed many people to pick up the next game when it comes out.
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