A day after shedding as much as 400 builders, EA has introduced that it’s ending its partnership with the World Rally Championship and stopping all rally games.
EA has not had a superb 12 months. Split Fiction offered nicely however EA Sports FC and Dragon Age: The Veilguard have been each gross sales disappointments, and on the identical time as Apex Legends has seen a decline in income.
if EA Sports FC 26 does higher then they will reverse their futures but it surely can’t be a coincidence {that a} day after they admitted to laying off up to 400 staff they’ve additionally discontinued use of the World Rally Championship (WRC) licence.
Apart from 100 job cuts at Apex Legends developer Respawn it’s not recognized what the breakdown is of layoffs throughout the remainder of the EA, but it surely now appears very seemingly that British developer Codemasters has or might be affected.
Codemasters has been round for the reason that 8-bit period and was the final large, impartial British writer and developer, earlier than they have been bought by EA for £1.2 billion in 2020.
Since then, they’ve labored totally on Formula 1 games for EA, the one exceptions being 2022’s GRID Legends and EA Sports WRC in 2023.
Codemasters has an extended historical past of constructing rally games, beginning with the long-lasting Colin McRae Rally sequence, which developed into the DiRT franchise. This was deserted in favour of specializing in the WRC licence, however just one sport was ever made.
‘Every great journey eventually finds its finish line, and today, we announce that we’ve reached the tip of the street engaged on WRC,’ reads a message on EA’s website. ‘For now, we are pausing development plans on future rally titles.’
No clarification is obtainable for why, however the sport didn’t appear to be a serious hit, and the job cuts alone point out that EA is now firmly in cash saving mode – particularly as it already laid off practically 700 folks final 12 months.
Although EA has confirmed some ‘select changes within our organisation’ it has not commented on the determine of between 300 and 400 layoffs, or which studios are affected.
For those who have already purchased EA Sports WRC, it’ll proceed to be accessible for redownload. If you’re however by no means received round to purchasing it, we’d advise selecting it up immediately, as the lack of the licence will imply it will likely be withdrawn from sale.
This is all but extra depressing information for the games business as a complete, the place the bulletins of lots of of job losses at a time have change into routine over the previous few years.
It’s a specific blow for such a storied developer as Codemasters, who might now be caught making nothing however Formula 1 games for the foreseeable future. F1 25 is because of be launched on thirtieth May for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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