The prestige and grandeur of Formula 1 has long made celebrities of its racers, but more often than not, their faces are hidden beneath the otherworldly masks of their race helmets. For players in F1 23, this is one of the ways in which they can get their character to stand out and perhaps tell a story in the form of certain designs and color schemes, much like the drivers of real life.
Whether to represent a home nation or replicate an iconic design, players will be able to customize a variety of helmets as well as access more elaborate designs through the in-game shop in F1 23. Equally, some helmet designs will be available as special unlocks through the Podium Pass and F1 World challenges.
F1 World
The F1 World section will enable players to partake in a number of challenges and mini-games in order to unlock additional bonuses affecting both gameplay and cosmetics. In the Customization menu option, players will be able to create custom appearances from livery designs and podium celebrations to race suits and driver helmets. In the customization section, a small helmet logo will be displayed along the bottom of the screen.
Following this, players are then free to choose and edit their preferred designs, as well as purchase additional designs should they choose to from the Item Shop. These designs can be saved and later accessed in other game modes such as Career and Multiplayer, though each design can only retain one color scheme at any given time.
Career Mode
One area of F1 23 where players are likely to want to customize their character as much as possible is within the Career and MyTeam Career modes. Players will get the opportunity to select and color a design as part of the Career setup process, but should they wish to alter this design or change it for any given race weekend, they can do so via the Corporate tab on the factory home screen. This tab will be unavailable once a race weekend has started.
Under Corporate, there is a Customization tab that will enable players to alter everything from the team's logo design and sponsorship placement on the car, to the driver's helmet and overall appearance. Players can also browse the other available helmet designs by viewing the Locked Items tab, though most of these items will be available for a small sum of Pitcoin.
Item Shop
In addition to a varied set of default designs, players will find considerably more options in the game Item Shop, where players can use the in-game microtransaction currency "Pitcoin" to purchase further helmet designs. New players will be glad to hear that upon downloading the game, they will immediately be granted several thousand Pitcoin, which they can spend in any way they wish.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the designs in the store are mostly superior to the default options, with more complex graphical and artistic designs to choose from. While many of these can be customized in terms of their color scheme, be aware that some of the specialty items, such as Max Verstappen's race helmet, will not be customizable in the same way.
F1 23 is available on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms starting June 16, 2023.