- IndyCar hasn’t had a video game launched since 2004, but a partnership announced Tuesday is hoping to change that.
- IndyCar and iRacing.com Motorsport Solutions struck an agreement to produce a video game for consoles and PC.
Just over four years since launching the series’ now-failed standalone video game project with Motorsport Games — what was slated to be its first in two decades — IndyCar has announced its next foray into the standalone video game space with iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations, the pair announced Tuesday, with plans to roll out a new title on PlayStation, Xbox and Steam in the second half of 2026.
The game is part of a long-term licensing agreement between IndyCar and iRacing Studios to produce standalone IndyCar video game titles for console and PC. Separately, IndyCar and iRacing Motorsport Simulations have also further extended their licensing agreement longer-term to allow the series to continue to have a presence on its simulation products ensuring “IndyCar’s continued gaming presence on PC and consoles alike for years to come.”
“IndyCar fans have long been clamoring for a standalone title for consoles, and we’re excited to give them what they’re looking for in 2026,” Tony Gardner, president of iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations, said. “iRacing Studios’ standalone IndyCar title will offer all the excitement of the IndyCar series and an immersive experience that fans of all ages can enjoy. We are already very excited about how the game is coming together.”
After a year-long hiatus from the iRacing platforms in 2023, due to the exclusivity of its now-defunct gaming deal with Motorsport Games, IndyCar linked back up with iRacing at the start of 2024 to restart what had been a well over a decade-long relationship that had given IndyCar a presence on one of the most popular sim racing platforms.
“The most competitive and challenging racing on the planet deserves a dedicated and widely available gaming experience,” IndyCar president Doug Boles said. “iRacing Studios is the ideal partner for us, trusted and known to our core fans and ready to share our sport with a wider and highly engaged audience.”
IndyCar’s title with iRacing Studios will join the latter’s library that presently includes NASCAR 25 and World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing. IndyCar’s game will feature a “robust, multilevel career mode, licensed drivers from the IndyCar series and Indy NXT and online multiplayer,” according to a release.
Notably, the new product will be “built from the ground up with a dedicated development team creating the game on iRacing Studios’ proprietary and enhanced Orontes engine” — a hint that the bones of IndyCar’s never-released title with Motorsport Games will now make the foundation of this new title.
IndyCar’s last console video game — IndyCar Series 2005 — launched in June 2004 with Codemasters but not until the summer of 2021 had the series pursued an update. That project with MSG was expected to debut in 2023. By early 2023, those plans had shifted back to 2024 as the company’s financial solvency was called into question. In the ensuing months, progress continued to be made on IndyCar’s first video game in two decades — with drivers, series officials, liveries and tracks all being scanned — but by the fall, MSG told investors it had laid off 40% of its staff and shuttered an Australian studio that was nearly in full control of the IndyCar game development.
Shortly after, MSG announced it had halted the game’s development, pushing IndyCar and Penske Entertainment to terminate the pair’s deal. At the time, MSG said it had retained all the technology and assets it had created to the game and hadn’t defaulted on payments ahead of the deal’s termination.
Concurrently that fall, MSG sold NASCAR’s gaming rights to iRacing for nearly $4 million.
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