I'm sure many of you have seen the article on here, or heard the news that Codemasters is ceasing updates for EA WRC and are not developing future rally games either. Codemasters Ends Development on Future Rally Games

But what is happening at Codemasters seems to extend beyond that. Mike Shaw on the insider gaming podcast has said: "I'm still trying to chase 100% confirmation, but EA is planning on merging Codemasters in with a different studio." He also points out that EA's current contract for the F1 license expires this year. F1 being Codemasters main game series with it's annual releases. Mike has been told that EA has been a little "iffy" on renewing that license or not. Codemasters twitter account has also been deleted.

EA acquired Codemasters in 2021 and it looks like their end could be on the horizon. They were established in 1986 and have created some amazing games in their time, particularly known for the Toca, Colin Mcrae, Grid and F1 Games.

They've definitely had missteps along the way but generally Codemasters deliver solid racing games and it will be a shame to see them go.

The discussion on Codemasters begins at 24:15 in the video below:

Sad news.

But to be honest, when I read this title, all I could think about was game-cheat devices lol.

EA should just be short for Eats Acquisitions.

Seems to be the beginning of the end (well, that and being acquired by EA in the first place).

It's sad because they made some of my favourite racing games, starting all the way back in the TOCA days, but they've been in decline for some time. The last few DiRT and GRID games - two of my favourite racing series - have been very disappointing from a fan perspective. In fact, looking at the dates, it's been around a decade since they made a DiRT or GRID game that I put more than a few hours into before I grew tired of the repetition and shallowness. The last GRID I refunded in disgust, which is shocking given the first GRID was my favourite racing game for a long time and I was always singing its praises on these forums.

GRID's gone down a weird narrative campaign rabbit hole that no one asked for and DiRT is all flashy colours and style over substance. Both have tracks that are all short, repetitive, and/or literal copy/pastes, and the handling has become far too simplistic. They're just so corporate and bland, in comparison to the innovation, experimentation, variety, and fun that were the hallmarks of the first GRID or DiRTs 2 & 3.

The F1 series has been fairly reliable, but as with sport licences, once you've played one of them you've kind of played them all, because they're limited to the real F1's current cars and tracks. And since the foundation is already in place, pretty much any small EA dev can churn one out, so it'll be easy for EA to calculate whether future entries will generate enough revenue to justify the licence.

They published one of my favorite childhood games, the Overlord series.

Man that takes me back, I totally forgot they made those. 

Overlord 1/2 on 360 and Dark Legend on Wii were good fun.

Hopefully they survive, but the ways things are with the industry nowadays, in the West at least, I wouldn't be surprised if their days are numbered.

Dirt2 is GOAT

This is the inevitable result of being bought. The culture changes in 6 months or so. Then management realise there’s no magical guarantee the next game will sell just because of the brand name.

Then everyone realises they could have just hired developers into existing teams. So that is the final state anyway.

I don't care how mediocre the game was, Codemasters holds a very special place in my heart because of this game. I will go to the grave with this in my top 5 FPS games of all time.

EA takes another victim - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/464605/codemasters-has-been-hit-with-layoffs/