F1 Manager 2022 (opens in new tab) was released on August 30, but will not receive the next major update. In a post to the game's subreddit (opens in new tab), Frontier's community manager said that "to ensure that future F1 Manager projects reach their potential," the game's next scheduled update "will be based on feedback reported by players and suggested He stated that it would be "the last significant update that will address the changes and additions". The community was not overjoyed.

"Any potential update following this will be a minor patch that will not have a noticeable impact on gameplay," the community manager's post continued, and "important reports and requests from the community regarding F1 Manager 2022 that have not yet been resolved" will instead be moved forward and "will be prioritized in the creation of future iterations in this franchise". Furthermore, Frontier's subreddit post describes specific and ongoing issues (open in new tab) that will not be fixed in this game, but will be addressed in future releases.

The last part might have been better left unsaid at all. Telling people that we are still paying attention to their complaints, but only so we can fix them in the next game, turned out not to be a crowd pleaser. Already the subreddit is flooded with fans condemning the decision, vowing never to buy another Frontier game (opens in new tab) and pleading with the company to withdraw (opens in new tab).

A complaint from user xford, who was initially quite frank, saying that he thought the game would continuously improve, but now thinks it is "disappointing and, frankly, a terrible way to launch a series," sums up the disappointment nicely (compared to other complaints, the capitalization abuse is considerably less).

In response to the backlash, Frontier clarified that "support for F1 Manager 2022 will continue and multiple updates are currently in preparation, with a focus on addressing the most important topics raised by the community."

"This update will include a number of changes and improvements, including resolving issues related to the calculation of expected race times and fuel usage in qualifying sessions, as well as additional updates focused solely on improving the user experience and addressing more player reports, where necessary. Frontier said in a statement posted on Reddit (opens in new tab).

"Yesterday's post was intended to explain that adding new important gameplay features for F1 Manager 2022 requested by players was not possible, but this was not clear."

While some players on Reddit are pleased with this explanation, others see the statement as a hasty retreat. In any case, it is good to know that the planned support will continue. We like F1 Manager 2022 a lot, with a review rating of 79% (open in new tab) and even declaring it more interesting than watching a real F1 race (open in new tab). And it's the only one that makes sense for Frontier: the fact that "F1 Manager 2022" seemed to brake suddenly less than two months after its release was an unexpected and unwanted change for a game that we felt had potential.