A Frontier Developments financial document has indicated that F1 Manager 2025 has been cancelled.
A generic statement from the firm’s 2024 financial year report has been confirmed to refer to the canned game, with negotiations taking place to terminate its Formula 1 licensing agreement early.
“After 31 May 2024 and before the signing of the accounts on 10 September 2024, commercial discussions with an IP partner resulted in the voluntary termination of a contract for a future game before full development started,” the statement read.
A further comment on this by financial services group Zeus Capital confirmed the F1 Manager series’ demise: “The company has confirmed [this] relates to F1 Manager 2025 that would have been released in FY26. As a result, our forecasts no longer include this title, leaving the company more reliant on the success of Jurassic World Evolution 3, due to be released that year”.
Sales failures
It’s a bitter blow to Frontier, but sales of the F1 Manager series have regularly been below expectations since its 2022 inception. The strategy to cut its losses seems a sensible approach given the disappointing performance of another of its flagship IPs in the form of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin.
Frontier also faced a swathe of staff redundancies after posting a pre-tax loss of £26.6m in the financial year 2022-23, with the company’s future health hinged on the success of its upcoming game portfolio.
Despite the cancellation, Frontier’s latest F1 game, F1 Manager 2024, was its most critically acclaimed yet, containing sought-after features like the ‘Create a Team’ mode and more advanced contract negotiation mechanics. It was also reduced in price compared to its two predecessors, with a Nintendo Switch version expanding its horizons further.
The UK developer recently released several significant features for the existing title, which has been warmly received by its community.
In more positive news for Frontier its most recent title, Planet Coaster 2, has been averaging over 5,000 concurrent daily players on Steam since its release, garnering positive reviews.
Traxion has reached out to Frontier Developments for comment.
How do you feel about F1 Manager 2025 being cancelled? Let us know in the comments below.
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I am not surprised. The general extremely poor graphics disappointed me so much when I got this year’s version. You would not recognise any drivers in a line up, it is that poor. There is no decent interaction with any team members or drivers. All a bit long and boring without the visual glory to keep you interested. Commentary is below par and again so predicatable. Shame I love F1 and really wanted to ‘manage’. Guess I was looking for the FM quality in F1… if any company managed that it would be a life long game for many.
Not many people play management games for the graphics, so I wouldn’t rank that as a huge issue personally. I thought the driver models were perfectly recognisable, do you play with the graphics turned up?
It’s a shame as I think ’24 is the best version yet, although it could get bland after a season or two. It’s a decent game but ultimately didn’t sell enough copies, which is sad.