EA has announced it will be “pausing” development on future rally racing games, including the WRC series, which has been running in one form or another since the early 2000s.
In a development update on its website, EA says that “every great journey eventually finds its finish line”, and that it’s “reached the end of the road working on WRC“. As such, the 2024 season of EA Sports WRC, which was released back in 2023, will be both the game’s last expansion and the last WRC-related thing you’ll see from EA, at least for a while.
The studio says it’s “pausing development plans on future rally titles”, so it sounds like it’s not just WRC, but also games like the Dirt series that won’t be getting any future installments for the time being.
EA says its time with WRC was a “culmination of sorts for [its] Codemasters journey”, and that it’s “provided a home for every rally enthusiast” over the course of its WRC and Dirt franchises.
News of EA pausing its rally games comes a year or so after layoffs at Codemasters, the studio responsible for the aforementioned franchises (as well as the GRID series and the official F1 tie-in games, neither of which appear to be affected by this announcement).
The news also follows yesterday’s report that EA will lay off around 300 to 400 of its employees, around 100 of whom work on games like Star Wars Jedi and Apex Legends for EA subsidiary Respawn. Both franchises remain active, however.
It’s also worth noting that the official Codemasters X account appears to have been scrubbed of all of its posts, suggesting that there may be a less-than-heroic end for the studio waiting in the wings following this announcement.
We’ll have to wait and see what fate awaits Codemasters, but current evidence suggests it’s not looking good. Stay tuned for more.