Where Did All the Racing Games Go?

Miscellaneous Off-Topic
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The Death of Racing Games? What’s Next After Forza, WRC, Project CARS?
It’s hard not to feel disheartened if you’re a fan of realistic racing games. In just a few years, we’ve witnessed the gradual collapse of nearly every major sim or semi-sim racing franchise that once defined the genre for console and PC players.

Forza Motorsport: Running on Fumes
Turn 10, the developer behind Forza Motorsport, has been hit hard by Microsoft’s recent layoffs. Nearly half of the studio was reportedly let go. While the 2023 reboot of Forza Motorsport still receives updates, the team left behind is significantly smaller and is likely focused only on maintenance. A true sequel—or any major new content—seems unlikely in the near future.

EA WRC: Already Over
EA’s WRC title, developed by Codemasters, launched with promise in late 2023. It offered a solid rally experience, arguably the best since DiRT Rally 2.0. But after massive layoffs at Codemasters in 2024, all WRC development was halted. The license remains with EA, but no new title is planned, effectively ending the franchise for now.

Project CARS, GRID, DiRT: Gone
Slightly Mad Studios’ Project CARS was canceled back in 2022, following the poor reception of its third installment. GRID never regained traction, and the DiRT series—especially its acclaimed Rally subseries—has been shelved. EA appears to have lost interest in serious racing games altogether.

So What’s Left?
The mainstream sim-racing space on consoles is nearly extinct. But a few pillars remain:

Assetto Corsa continues to thrive thanks to a passionate modding community and solid physics. A sequel is on the way.

iRacing dominates the competitive e-sports sim world but is subscription-based and not very beginner-friendly.

Gran Turismo 7 is arguably the last standing premium racing experience on consoles, and Sony appears committed to its future.

Meanwhile, smaller studios are carrying the torch, with games like Automobilista 2 or rFactor 2 appealing to niche audiences, though they lack the polish or accessibility of the larger franchises that came before.

What Does the Future Look Like?
We’re entering a period where realistic racing games are no longer considered a profitable mainstream genre by major publishers. Instead, development is either shifting to ultra-niche simulations or being replaced by arcade racers with live-service models.

This doesn’t mean the genre is dead—but it’s no longer a mass-market priority. The middle ground—simcade racers with broad appeal—is almost entirely gone.

Final Thoughts
For those who loved the blend of realism and accessibility in games like Forza Motorsport, DiRT Rally, or Project CARS, it feels like the golden era is behind us. But hope remains in the hands of independent developers, modding communities, and dedicated sim platforms. The genre isn’t dead—it’s just shrinking into a form that only the truly passionate will continue to nurture.

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I believe the WRC license went back to Nacon which is probably a good thing.

There’s also Project Motor Racing out later this year which is meant to be a spiritual successor to Project Cars.

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WRC and Forza Motorsport aren’t dead because of lack of interest, they’re dead because mismanagement created crap.

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I don’t really agree with that, there is still ACC, which is still going to get some kind of update, but nothing specific has been announced yet.
There is also LMU, which is confirmed by the devs to come to console at some point.
And Rennsport, which is confirmed to come to console later this year. while it’s definitely a small simcade, it still could become a good game for Forza fans, as the physics are relatively forgiving and the graphics with ray tracing are not bad.
There is also AC Evo, which is probably like ACC going to come to console at some point, with cross play.
And at last there is Project Motor Racing, which is going to come out on PC and console. It’s probably also going to be a great alternative for FM fans, especially the ones that are missing a fully fleshed singleplayer career mode.

While console players are pretty much left in the dark right now, there is still a lot of aspiration from multiple studios to port their games to console. So the future might be quite a bit brighter.

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Definitely not a good thing nacon sucks …. Look at tdu and the wrc games they made all bad, code masters are the right ones for the job . Dirt2.0 still have the best sounding cars in a car game

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Touche but it was more a dig at EA than Codemasters. I think the mistake was shifting to Unreal Engine. It teared and stuttered like crazy for me that I’d have just taken any other previous WRC game over EAs. The Dirt Rally games were great though.

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In fact, I was able to test the beta of RENNSPORT, a bit of LMU and essentially AC: they’re all simulations.
I’m not worried about this segment, it’s flourishing and managing to survive with its player base.

However, when it comes to games in between the two genres, things are more complicated. Most of the pure “arcades” are finished, and what was able to slip between the arcade world and the beginnings of simulation is on the point of dying out. It’s this segment that worries me for the future!

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Turn 10 really screwwed themselves after trying to put out a game for the XB1 release and it’s been a downfall ever since. I don’t know how you could bring such a spectacle of a game as FM4 out and then just cave to Xbox executives to produce such crap as FM5-FM.

Like previous posts, it’s really poor management looking for a cheap dollar that has made games like FM, GRID, Dirt/WRC into a racing wasteland. Stop appeasing to the casual market. I hope games like Project Motor Racing and RENNSPORT do well, we need some racing games that will thrive.

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IMHO, FM4 was the high point for the series. After that the visuals and driving experience seemed to move in diverging directions.

The sense of progression you got from unlocking cars and learning to drive the cars in game was removed. They now drop you into A class cars, and dumbed down the controls so you don’t crash. In making it appeal to casuals, they alienated many of the players that made it successful to begin with.

They have systematically removed most of the things that made the series stand out.

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It isn’t even just the sims and the simcade games. The whole genre is barely getting by these days.

In addition to the games OP already mentioned, Need for Speed has been put on ice in favor of Battlefield, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown flopped, Mario Kart World ruined its tried and tested formula that did not need changing, The Crew is forever tied to Ubisoft, and who knows when Horizon is getting a sequel at this point.

The only game resembling a shining light is Tokyo Xtreme Racer, which is unfortunately rather shallow as it only focuses on highway racing and JDM vehicles. In times where the games that are supposed to be the jack of all trades are doing poorly, something as niche as TXR will remain exactly that. Niche.

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