F1 2020

F1 2020 arrived as the Codemasters series' most ambitious entry to date, built around one genuinely new idea: instead of just driving for an existing team, My Team let players found their own outfit, hire a teammate, negotiate sponsorships, and manage a budget while still strapping into the cockpit themselves. The reception at the time was enthusiastic enough to earn a Steam Awards category win, and years later, the review sample still treats it as a high point for the series. That legacy now comes with an unavoidable asterisk: F1 2020 no longer appears for sale on Steam at all, a fact that has to shape how this review is read from the outset rather than arriving as a late caveat.

A high point for the series, by wide agreement

My Team is the review sample's clearest point of consensus. Reviewers across the board describe it as exactly the kind of structural addition a decade-old annual sports series needed — management-layer decisions like sponsorship deals and facility upgrades sitting alongside the driving itself, giving a career mode real texture beyond points and podiums. Audio work draws equally enthusiastic, specific praise: engine notes vary meaningfully by RPM and car, described by multiple reviewers as a genuine leap from the "muffled kettle" sound the previous entry reportedly had. AI opponents come in for similar treatment — reviewers say the racing feels convincingly human, complete with visible lockups and defensive mistakes rather than a purely scripted difficulty curve, immersion several reviewers specifically credit to replay footage capturing exactly these moments.

The complaints that trailed the acclaim

Set against that reception, two specific threads recur often enough to weigh seriously. Multiplayer draws the most persistent technical criticism: reviewers report bugs including infinite loading screens before and after online races that some describe as present, in some form, since as far back as 2017's entry in the series — a claim about the franchise's own history rather than this game in isolation, and one repeated by multiple independent long-time players in similar terms. Monetisation is the second major thread: a seasonal "Podium Pass" cosmetic progression track was sold alongside the full-price base game, and one especially heavily-upvoted review argues the developers deliberately limited free customization options specifically to push players toward spending more, a pointed and specific criticism distinct from a general "there's a battle pass" complaint. Crash reports also appear across a real number of reviews, with some describing extended troubleshooting sessions that never resolved a launch failure.

A game that no longer exists to buy

The single most important fact for anyone reading this now is one this review has to state plainly rather than bury: F1 2020 has been delisted from the Steam store. Multiple reviewers independently confirm this directly in their own reviews, and Steam's own storefront data backs it up — the listing carries no active price alongside a non-free status, the technical signature of a removed product rather than an active one. This review cannot confirm the exact reasoning, but delisting older entries after a few years is common practice across the annual licensed F1 series specifically, tied to the driver, team and sponsor names each edition is built around losing currency as rosters change. Whatever the cause here, the practical consequence for a prospective buyer is total: there is currently no legitimate way to purchase F1 2020 new.

Not an isolated case

Checking the wider series confirms this isn't unique to F1 2020: F1 2019 shows the same pattern on Steam's own search, with only an unrelated third-party telemetry tool surfacing under that name rather than the actual game. That consistency across at least two entries supports treating this as a structural feature of how the annual, real-driver-and-team-licensed F1 series manages its back catalogue, rather than something specific to this one release's performance or reception. Buyers researching any older entry in this specific franchise should expect to find the same situation rather than assuming F1 2020 is a special case.

What the Podium Pass actually charged for

It's worth being specific about what drew the monetisation criticism, since "battle pass in a full-price game" alone doesn't fully capture the complaint. The Podium Pass ran in seasonal series, each unlocking cosmetic liveries, driver suits and helmet designs through play or direct purchase, layered on top of a game that already cost roughly a AAA full-price tag at launch. The specific, heavily-upvoted complaint wasn't that cosmetics existed at all, but that the free-tier options were reportedly kept deliberately sparse compared to what was available through the paid track, an allegation about deliberate scarcity design rather than simple extra-content-for-sale.

Verdict

F1 2020 earned its reputation as a genuine high point for Codemasters' F1 series honestly — My Team remains a well-loved structural addition, and its audio and AI racing draw praise that holds up in the review record years later. Its legacy is complicated rather than erased by what came after: persistent multiplayer bugs some reviewers trace back years across the franchise, a cosmetic monetisation system layered onto a full-price release, and now its own quiet removal from sale. For existing owners, it's still worth returning to for the career and My Team experience specifically, ideally in single-player where the multiplayer bugs never enter the picture; for anyone else, the delisting itself is the review, and the most useful thing this page can tell a reader who never bought it in time.