EA has quietly retired The Project Cars racing game franchise developed by Slightly Mad Studios. After internally announcing that it had made the decision to "stop further development and investment" for the series, EA also confirmed that affected personnel will be moved to "appropriate" roles within the company whenever possible.
An EA spokesperson GamesIndustry.biz“Today we announced an update to our racing portfolio internally. After evaluating the next Project CARS title and its long-term growth potential, we have made the decision to discontinue further development and investment for the franchise.” said.
“Decisions like this are tough, but they allow us to prioritize our focus on areas where we believe we have the strongest opportunity to create experiences that fans will love. We focus on our strengths in our racing portfolio, particularly licensed projects and open space. We are expanding our series to be more socially driven with long-term live services that will engage global communities. We are working with everyone affected by this decision to place them in appropriate roles in our EA Sports and racing portfolio. Our priority is to provide as much support as possible to our employees during this transition.”
The beginning of the end of the CARS Project games kicked off earlier this year when fans reported that the first two games in the series were delisted on September 21 and October 3 due to expired car and track licenses. All three games were previously published by Bandai.
The first Project CARS game was released in 2015, followed by two sequels in 2017 and 2020, and a mobile spin-off called Project CARS Go in 2021.
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