Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends

I came into this one hoping for the racing equivalent of a Ferrari museum road trip. What I got was closer to a strict driving exam with beautiful test subjects and a frustrating examiner. Slightly Mad Studios built this on the same engine they used for the Need for Speed: Shift series, and the physics do carry that DNA - weighty, sim-leaning, and demanding. The car roster is genuinely impressive: 51 models covering everything from the 1947 125 S all the way to 2011 Formula One machinery, with single-seaters, GT cars, sports cars, and even rally machinery in the mix. If your heart skips at the name 330 P4 or FXX, that breadth alone is hard to find anywhere else. The career structure splits Ferrari history into three eras - Gold (1947 to 1973), Silver (1974 to 1990), and Modern (1990 to 2011) - and you can jump into any of them from the start. Each era packs over 50 events, which is a substantial number on paper. The missions vary between standard races, time trials, rival duels, and teammate-support objectives where you need your partner to finish second behind you. That last type actually captures something authentic about factory racing politics, and those moments land. The problem is the padding around them. Event after event on rotating versions of the same circuits, prefaced by walls of static text instead of anything cinematic, drains the momentum well before you clear a single era. Difficulty is where casual players and the game are going to have a serious disagreement. Three preset difficulty tiers control a bundle of driving assists together - you cannot toggle individual aids like steering help or braking assistance independently. There is no rewind. A single late-braking mistake on lap eight of a ten-lap race means restarting the whole thing, and the AI has a habit of playing bumper cars despite the contact physics being brutal enough to spin you four places back on a single tap. On a wheel and pedals the handling has real texture to it and the cars do feel distinct from each other, which is the most positive thing I can say about the core driving. On a gamepad it gets twitchy and imprecise fast, and keyboard players are going to struggle. Casual racers, four friends on the couch, anyone looking for a social session - this is not that game. There is no split-screen, and the online lobby, which caps at eight players, was already quiet at launch and is effectively a ghost town now. Visually the cars themselves hold up with nice cockpit detail and authentic exterior modelling, but the track environments were criticized at launch as sparse, and that criticism still stands. No dynamic weather, no night racing, and Ferrari's licensing restrictions mean visible damage is minimal - cars bounce off barriers and carry on looking pristine, which undermines the sense of consequence the physics engine is otherwise trying to sell. Sound design is a different story; the engine notes are genuinely good and there is very little music during races, which is either immersive or unsettling depending on your mood. For the specific player this targets - someone who wants to methodically work through Ferrari's competitive history, who owns a USB steering wheel, and who has the patience for a punishing campaign structure - there is a rewarding sim underneath the rough edges. For everyone else, including the Saturday night group and anyone who wants modern sim-racing polish, better options exist and always have.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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