Update October 28th 3:40 PM:
It turns out that Frontier Developments' messaging wasn't as clear as intended in their original announcement. Multiple updates are planned for F1 Manager 2022, with the upcoming update planned to address "Estimated Race Time calculations and fuel usage in Qualifying sessions". If required, there will be more updates focused on player reports and improving the overall experience. Unlapping won't be fixed, and the resulting backlash has seen the Reddit post receive hundreds of downvotes.
Basically, while there won't be any significant gameplay changes after this next (and last) major update, it looks like Frontier Developments is determined to polish up F1 Manager 2022 before they fully move on to future entries in the series.
The original article is below:
Unfortunately, the next F1 Manager 2022 update will be its last, according to a developer post on Reddit. The post explains that despite the game being just two months old, the next major F1 Manager 2022 update will be the last one of any significance before the developer team moves on to the next F1 Manager title. This is strange since the game still has thousands of people playing it, and the game was (and technically still is) being sold as a live service game for $54.99. While the developer notes that there may still be minor updates later, they won't affect gameplay in a significant way like the last major update for F1 Manager 2022 will.
While we can't pretend that embarrassing shutdowns don't exist, for a game that's seemingly doing well (or at least OK), what gives? Is F1 Manager 2022 not doing well enough, or is the game in such a bad state that it isn't worth the effort wrangling things into a more agreeable condition? Right now, Frontier Developments isn't giving anything away, except that the live service portion of F1 Manager 2022 is closing. Still, we can at least talk about it.
F1 Manager 2022 hasn't been a great ride
Basically, F1 Manager 2022 has been struggling since its launch from both a gameplay and bugs standpoint, at least from what I can tell. Terms like "buggy mess" on its forums are abundant, and there are many posts about how the game has needed a lot of love to get over the finish line. Presumably, the next major update will help the game get to a more playable state, but that's not exactly what your players who've bought into the developers' vision would want to hear, especially if this forthcoming update is the last one.
This timeline, provided by Redditor jules3001, doesn't paint Frontier Developments in the best light. The timeline suggests that the new F1 Manager 2022 update will give the game the "stable core aspects [it] should have had on release". If that's the case, it looks as though the game was perhaps not in development long enough to give fans what they wanted from it. For $54.99 and two months of service in the shop, that's probably not going to reflect well on Frontier when it comes time for F1 Manager 2023.
We currently don't have a timeline for the last major F1 Manager 2022 update, but watch this space for more info. When the update does land, it's scheduled to bring car model upgrades, fuel usage issue fixes, and other "optimizations". For the latest on other live service games being shut down before their time, stay tuned to TechRaptor.
