There are a fair few complaints regularly levelled against the F1 games, but one of the biggest is that they’re a bit… samey. With largely similar cars, teams and tracks each year in the real-life sport, it’s hard to keep the yearly tie-in games feeling fresh, and attempts to do so, like the Braking Point story mode or the disastrously-received F1 Life ‘lifestyle’ elements briefly experimented with a few years ago, often feel phoned in.
In a move seemingly designed to answer these criticisms, though, publisher EA Sports has announced that there will be no F1 26 game, with the new season instead to be added to the current title, F1 25, via a paid expansion that “will align with the sport’s major changes for the 2026 season, bringing fans new cars, sporting regulations, teams, and drivers.”
Somewhat ironically, that decision comes ahead of a season that’ll see one of the biggest shakeups to the sport in recent years. There’s an entirely new set of regulations that do away with DRS in favour of a push-to-pass style override system and driver-adjustable aero setups, a long-awaited 11th team in the form of Cadillac, Audi taking over the Sauber outfit and a fresh circuit in the shape of Madrid’s new street course.
Even all this, though, likely wouldn’t have made too much difference to the player experience, which is why most people will likely be happy to shell out presumably a decent chunk less than a fully-priced game.
The next new game proper will instead come in 2027, when EA promises it’ll be “reimagined into a more expansive experience with new ways to play for fans around the world.” No word on exactly what that entails at this point.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time EA has taken this course lately. The 2024 WRC season came to 2023’s EA Sports WRC by way of a paid expansion pack, which the game’s creative director told us at the time allowed the base game to continually evolve. That, however, proved to be the publisher’s final dalliance with the sport, the rights having now returned to previous holders Nacon.
That spelt bad news for many working at Codemasters’ long-established rally team, but there’s better news for those on the F1 side of the EA-owned developer. Codemasters’ senior creative director, Lee Mathers, says the studio is “fully committed to the EA Sports F1 franchise,” and that it has a multi-year plan for the series. Before that, though, we’ll find out more info on the 2026 season expansion in, erm, 2026.
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Mike joined Car Throttle as a Staff Writer at the start of 2024, a role that sees him driving the news desk, as well as reviewing cars and (often unsuccessfully) pitching features on obscure Italian hatchbacks.
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