Why EA can’t afford to get F1 27 wrong.

Will F1 27 stall on the way to the grid?

Promotional image for F1 25 {EA Sports}

By Nathan Devlin

Every year since 1997, different studios have brought out a Formula One (F1) game. EA Sports started making F1 games in 2000. The F1 game offers players the opportunity to drive their favourite cars with their favourite drivers. EA lost the exclusivity rights a short while later. F1 games were made by Sony Studios between 2003-2008.

British Studio Codemasters took the wheel in 2009. They are responsible for bringing more realism to F1 games with additions of safety cars, formation laps and career mode.

EA returned to the series in 2021 after acquiring Codemasters. That same year they introduced the much loved ‘my team’ mode. This mode allowed players to create their own team, hire drivers, manage the team and car.

Since that point the F1 game series has been on a gradual decline with the games from 2023 and 2024 the lowest rated and played. Fans are becoming increasingly disinterested in the same game every year that’s filled with bugs and glitches.

 In 2022 real life F1 introduced a new set of regulations that changed the look of cars completely making them heavier and slower.

To adapt to this EA introduced a completely new handling model, which F1 champion and sim racer Max Verstappen was consulted in creating. Despite this, the new handling model was not received well. New tracks that year such as Miami were unplayable unless the player was using a steering wheel.

F1 cars during a race {Unsplash Images}

Codemasters, F1 22, 23 and 24 were not regarded well as they didn't include classic cars. In many F1 games classic cars were included to give the player an opportunity to drive older cars on track.

The last game that offered this was F1 2020.The highest rated in the series with 1.2 million copies sold with a peak of 24,010 concurring players. In 2025 the F1 game had fallen to 13,327 reoccurring players. The latest edition in the series, F1 25 has sold over 40,000 copies on Steam. Comparing that to the previous year’s F1 24 Steam sales were 3,000.

In November 2025 EA announced that F1 26 the game was not releasing marking the first time since 2015. Instead, they are releasing an expansion for the current F1 25 game using it as a base for the new 2026 cars.  Instead in 2027 ‘F1 27’ is planned as a new experience for players.

From the decline in players to games not received well, EA Sports and Codemasters must get the next full F1 game perfect or crash at the first corner.