Codemasters abandons action for racing

Codemasters will leave behind the action genre to focus solely on racing games.

The firm is working on new titles in the F1, Grid and Dirt racing series, and they will all be released under the company’s new publishing label, Codemasters Racing.

The new label’s first game will be Dirt Showdown on May 25th.

It follows the difficult launches of shooters Operation Flashpoint: Red River and Bodycount.

We have kept our reputation for delivering best-in-class racing games,” said communications chief Rich Eddy. And best-in-class racing games is now our razor focus going forward.

In racing, we are No.2 in Europe and that’s not good enough. We want to take racing games across multiple platforms and genres. So that players can play anytime, anywhere and on any device.

Racing is our DNA, it is our heritage, it is our specialisation and it is our absolute focus going forward.”

Codemasters has also announced a new online hub that will unite Grid, Dirt and F1. Racenet is a free community service that provides users with a Driver Profile that will work across all future Codemasters racing titles. Players can take part in additional in-game events and even win extra content.

Codemasters hopes the service will keep its players engaged for longer. It will also allow the publisher to cross-promote its games.

Racenet will launch alongside the Dirt Showdown demo on May 1st.