IndyCar Doesn’t Have A Developer Anymore – So What Now?

Motorsport Games Australia, formerly known as Black Delta, were the developers of KartKraft. The studio had been working on the IndyCar title for a significant amount of time, using their own KartKraft engine as a base, and unfortunately had failed to deliver on a number of deadlines over the past year pushing release beyond 2023. Not their fault, honestly, because they weren’t given adequate time to do the job. Unfortunately, announced this week, the studio no longer exists. Every member of Motorsport Games Australia has been let go to help the parent company meet financial goals.

Frustratingly, they appear to have been working on the game right up until the final day and even had another teaser trailer ready to go in order to officially push the release date to 2024:

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If Motorsport Games are able to hold onto the IndyCar license throughout 2024 it seems like there is only one way to deliver a product, and that would be with Studio 397. Studio 397, currently developing Le Mans Ultimate and rFactor 2, are another highly skilled unit of people that could certainly get the job done on PC (after they release Le Mans Ultimate, of course). Whether the track assets created for the KartKraft engine would be easily ported to the rFactor 2 engine remains to be seen, but that could be a way for this title to still see the light of day, one day.

Why would I still want to see an IndyCar game at all? Well, because when this one was announced I was extremely excited. I finally felt like IndyCar had done something, and after decades of nothingness, we’d have an IndyCar game rather than just a licensed Dallara car and some random selection of tracks. Regardless of how much I hate exclusive licenses, I still want an IndyCar game.

On the exclusivity, it is important that IndyCar fans also recognize that two entities signed that deal, not one. I think IndyCar should be the ones trying to figure out how to help iRacing for their fans because they signed that deal. Fans should also feel free to blame Motorsport Games for not seeing a fully-fledged simulation of IndyCar the past couple of years… But, who is to blame before that? Why was the last IndyCar title released in 2004? Why was the last GOOD IndyCar title released in 1993 (IndyCar Racing II didn’t have Indianapolis and therefore shouldn’t even get a passing grade as an IndyCar game – surely)? Do fans honestly just want to see a Dallara in random games (note, that’s not something IndyCar has anything to do with either unless there’s a real team livery), or do they want to see IndyCar recreated in all it’s glory with all the teams and all the tracks? That’s what I still want…