This franchise is dead

Dear motorsport fans

A while ago, I've heard Electronic Arts (The Publisher) manipulated Slightly Mad Studios to cancel the development of Project Cars 4 and drop the franchise as they push them to create other driving game IPs for them so what is it going to be next? something like Burnout?

To me, this is not fair for what EA did recently, so I guess they want their subsidiaries to only focus & develop arcade-style racing games, I hope they won't mess up Codemasters as well.

Here is an article from Traxion for more details: Report: The Project CARS series is dead - Traxion

Edit: There is a good Project Cars alternative called Automobilista 2 (Developed by Reiza Studios), which shares the same game engine (Madness Engine) but the driving model feels more realistic, however, it's not recommended to use the keyboard & controller pad to play while the controls are mainly optimized for racing wheel set with force feedback, here is the Steam page for more details:
Automobilista 2 on Steam (steampowered.com)

I don't think they'll necessarily make an arcade racer, they'll probably just make a game in one of EA's othe franchises. Like a Need for Speed simcade game (there have been a couple before) or something from one of the Codemaster franchises.

It never really made sense for EA to create more Project CARS games because EA already has more racing franchises than any other studio. In this day and age you want fewer big franchises, not a bunch of little ones. Look at what Microsoft did when they wanted to make an open world arcade racing game. They made it part of the Forza franchise instead of making it its own thing. Likewise their RTS is Halo Wars and when they made an Xcom-like game it was a Gears of War spinoff.

I think EA will have Slightly Mad make a Need for Speed game or a DIRT game, with more sim elements than those franchises usually have. That is if it doesn't just close the studio.

This is kinda what I was afraid of when EA bought Codemasters. They never seemed to have any interest in publishing a large selection of slightly different racing franchises. It would not surprise me at all to learn their primary purpose was to get the licence for F1 and WRC.

Slightly Mad and Cheshire seem most at risk of shutting down, or being made into Need for Speed support studios.

@bigsocrates: Hmm, Slightly Mad Studios to create a Simcade Need For Speed or assist Codemasters would be a good idea.

@judaspete: Yeah, I'm still curious about Codemasters' future is going to be a couple of years later, for me it's better for them to keep up the DiRT Rally franchise so the hardcore rally Sim fans can feel happy.

The story continues...
Original Project CARS creator trying to re-hire EA team | Traxion

Project Cars 3 was a major disappointment to me, I do hope whatever the team works on next is more in the line of 1 & 2.

@thevole: I reckon this game shouldn't be called Project Cars 3 as it felt much like a spin-off title judging on the developer changing from Simcade to Arcade (Similar gameplay to NFS Shift, GRID & Driveclub), not to mention that it was from the director of Driveclub as well.

Well, we can wait for GTR Revival instead.