Sobering news at Straight4 Studios, the developers of Project Motor Racing, as workforce cuts have been enacted.
In a statement released today, 8th December 2025, the embattled outfit confirmed to Traxion that it had “reached the heartbreaking conclusion that we had to reduce the size of our team” towards the end of last week.
This followed what it described as “exploring every possible alternative.”
“To those leaving Straight4 today: thank you. Your talent and effort have shaped this studio, and you leave with our respect, gratitude, and support,” reads the statement.
Project Motor Racing was released on 25th November 2025 for PC and consoles, targeted as a spiritual successor to both the revered GTR simulations of the ‘00s and the Project CARS series.
It uses a combination of scratch-built vehicle dynamics and the graphics technology used in the Farming Simulator games – a marriage that potentially led to an inconsistent driving experience and visual bugs.
Since the launch, several patches have been deployed, the most recent of which dramatically changed the way GT3 cars drove.
The exact number of personnel caught up in the reduction is not known, but Traxion believes it to be significant.
“This decision is not a reflection of the talent or dedication of the people affected,” continued the company.
“Every individual who worked on Project Motor Racing poured passion into it, and we are profoundly grateful for their contributions.
“We recognise the personal weight of this moment, and we are committed to supporting each departing team member with care and respect.”
“Straight4 remains fully committed to improving and supporting Project Motor Racing”
While the Straight4 team has had its headcount reduced, those who remain will continue to work on the beleaguered title.
“We know the launch didn’t meet the expectations of our community, or the standards we set for ourselves,” says the statement.
“Our focus now is on rebuilding trust by strengthening the game, update by update.
“The team remains determined to refine the physics, enhance systems, and bring the experience closer to what our community has always believed it could be.”
Traxion understands that further game updates are expected before the end of the year.
While the title came under criticism, it is clear to the Traxion team that it does have potential, provided the team responsible is given enough bandwidth, time and support to turn it around.
According to Straight4, that is the case:
“This is an undeniably difficult chapter, but we remain committed to moving forward, rebuilding, and delivering something worthy of the trust you’ve placed in our partners and us.”
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We all *want* “our” game (by that I mean *all* of the sim racing titles that come under the genre) to be the best it can be. We, the sim racing community, know we are small, we know we are privilged to be living in a golden era for sim racing, and so we *do* support every title and want to see every title to succeed. It’s like owning 10 guitars, you love them all, and you justify owning them all with the “they all *sound* different” excuse.
I think the problem PMR has, is we all saw the youtube videos 2 weeks before release, with all the youtube reviewers going “uh.oh…” and then we all saw the pricing on steam. Between £60 and £80 for an early access of a game that from recent (LMU, AC Evo) experience, wasn’t going to be the polished, revolutionary product the puffed up CEO and £80 asking price were heavily hinting at. And then release day. Or crash day, if you prefer. And then the statement. And then this here press release “……..and bring the experience closer to what our community has always believed it could be.”, No. *We* didn’t *always* believe anything. You hyped up your release beyond reasonable expectation level and then released a sub-standard build candidate into early access and hoped that you could fleece full price polished game type money out of it from day 1.
Look, at the end of the day, I think as a community, the lineage PMR has is legendary, and we all know what can be done, and we all want that legendary, game re-difining type of experience GTR2 and the like gave us.
New this and new that sounds exciting and you must have had reason for hyping us over it. So, go and work hard, patch and release a working game, introduce VR and maybe in return, we will all live on Baked Beans on toast for a few weeks and buy the ultimate version (Although I will be awaiting a stable VR release before my beans on toast stint).
Now, I’ve got a Raceroom session coming up, so if you’ll excuse me…..
Spot on.