Codemasters F1 Creative Director Says A Bitter Sweet Goodbye

It’s official: Codemasters’ creative director (2011-2014) and former chief game designer (2009-2011) for the F1 series has left his post.

Steve Hood took to the Codies’ forums in December to confirm the rumours and has already begun work as creative director at Dovetail Games where he says he will do his part to make it the world’s best simulation entertainment company (good news for flight sim fans but bad news for F1 addicts).

Over the last few years, Steve had expressed his frustrations with the tight release schedule for the games. He felt as though the team could never make those giant leaps in progress while only allowing a short time per project. With only a single development team, it was hard to repeat the yearly content while at the same time developing new features to stay competitive. However, great changes have been made for the 2015 game, including a new physics engine.

Steve told fans in his farewell post, “I decided to resign even though F1 could be on the cusp of being bigger than it has ever been before…The handling is where I had hoped we’d have been with the initial F1 2010 game”. He also said in a separate discussion “It’ll probably be the best game yet and I’ll look like an idiot for leaving!”

Steve made it clear before leaving that he never blamed the development team or pointed any fingers at people for his reason to leave. He also let fans know he is extremely sad about leaving right before the 2015 game’s completion, but he was not fired or asked to leave; Steve had been on his way out for over six months, with the final two devoted to work on a different project.

In one of his last posts, he applauded some forum members for not taking the popular negative approach and criticised those who did, telling them to “at least do it in a more civilised manner.” Steve had always been one to accept the blame for the games’ faults, even when it did not belong on him. He often encouraged those raging members to bring on the hate posts.

So what does this mean for the future of the F1 series? Steve believes the team is well on track to implement the major changes ahead. This year will be a major break through for the series, which will be ready for next-gen consoles with noticeably improved handling thanks to the new physics engine. In a sombre final thought, Steve admits:

My only regret is not getting to the point where I’d made the game I really wanted to make - because that, I feel, is what many of you would have liked to have played.