The news that there will be no new F1 game in 2026 is a shock, and one that I thought we’d never see.
Many sports franchise titles feel stuck in an endless cycle of annual releases, because that’s how it’s always been done. There must be a feeling that the fuss you can create around a brand new game is worthwhile because of the sales it generates at full-game prices.
And while sports games cling onto that desperate hope that enough people will want to buy a game with just enough updates and new features to justify an expensive new release 12 months after the last one, the rest of the gaming world is moving on. Some of the biggest, most lucrative titles in the world in recent years have earned their success off the back of a strong base game that then continues to make money through new content being added to it.
I’ve been hoping for years that this would happen to sports games, in particular racing games - not just the F1 title. I commend the effort the Codemasters development team has put in to keep finding something new and exciting to add each year, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep adding enough every 12 months.
Inevitably, the tech that goes into making the games, and the platforms we play them on, are developing more slowly than used to be the case. So each year a new game feels very similar to the one that came before it.
And if you really want to overhaul your game, you can’t, because all of the work that goes into your annual release keeps getting in the way.
Annual releases for official sports titles became habitual for two reasons, both of which made sense at the time. First you have the natural interest that comes from playing with the current roster of teams and competitors, and in the case of racing games, cars too. From time to time you’d get a new track added into the mix as well.
But the second reason that annual releases used to make sense has pretty much disappeared now. In the 1990s, 2000s and even most of the 2010s, the steps that could be taken between each game as the technology used to build them, and the platforms they could be played on, constantly evolved meant each new release felt like you were playing something very different from the year before.
But those leaps are a thing of the past. For a long time now we’ve been in a world of incremental gains each year, which can result in change for change’s sake, and new features being added that no one really wants, just so the publishers have something to make it look like you’re buying something different to the year before.
EA Sports’ announcement regarding its F1 series says that making the new era of 2026 regulations an expansion pack that can be bought for F1 25 is “part of a strategic reset for the F1 franchise”, and there will be a full-blown new game in 2027.
The promises being made about F1 27 are big, and vague. But if taking a year off from annual releases really does mean that, to quote EA, 2027 will “mark the start of a new and more expansive F1 experience”, then I’m all for it.
F1 27 will apparently “look, feel and play differently”, and feature “more gameplay choices”. If all of that talk is backed up with substance, then I’m intrigued.
If this is the start of a new cycle, where we get a new game every TWO (or more!) years, and a content update for the seasons in between, that’s a move I’m in favour of.
Although that’s of course dependent on how different the 2027 game really is!
The era of annual sports games has overstayed its welcome. Whatever the reasons behind EA’s decision not to release an F1 26 game, I hope this marks a permanent shift in the way the F1 franchise operates from now on.
