Project CARS was a racing simulator designed by Slightly Mad Studios and spanned multiple games in the previous generation. After the third title’s release in 2020, the series went dormant for a while, seeing no new releases. The story only gets worse for them, as the first two titles wound up delisted earlier this year, as you can see below.
An update from the Slightly Mad Team on #ProjectCARS and #ProjectCARS2. pic.twitter.com/VtWEow5jao
— Project CARS (@projectcarsgame) August 22, 2022
And today, Project CARS has an even worse fate in store for it. Earlier this morning, Project CARS was completely dropped by EA, saying that it’s decided to "stop further development and investment" in the franchise. At this point, the series is completely dead, and only people who really like the games will keep them alive.
As for Slightly Mad Studios, it doesn’t seem like anyone will be put out of a job, thankfully. They’re being reassigned to “suitable” roles and positions “wherever they can”. Back in 2019, when Slightly Mad was bought by Codemasters, Slightly Mad employed 150 staff members.
An EA spokesperson commented on the subject to gamesindustry.biz, stating that this was an internal update to the company's racing portfolio. "Following an evaluation of the next Project CARS title and its longer-term growth potential, we have made the decision to stop further development and investment for the franchise.
Decisions like these are very hard, but allow us to prioritize our focus in areas where we believe we have the strongest opportunity to create experiences that fans will love. We are focusing on our strengths in our racing portfolio, particularly licensed IP and open-world experiences, and expanding our franchises to be more socially-led with long-term live services that will engage global communities.
We are working with everyone impacted by this decision to place them into suitable roles across our EA Sports and racing portfolio, as well as other parts of EA, wherever we can. Our priority now is to provide as much support as possible to our people through this transition.
Given what EA has on store shelves and its upcoming titles, it’s pretty likely that the development team for the Project CARS games will shift to something like FIFA, Need for Speed, or Battlefield 2042, just to name a few possibilities. For now, though, another series bites the dust in gaming. We’ll continue to update as this story develops.
