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You’ve got less than a month to buy Project CARS 3 before it’s delisted forever

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You’ve got less than a month to buy Project CARS 3 before it’s delisted forever | Top Gear

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Another racing game bites the digital dust, thanks to expiring licenses

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You’ve got less than a month to buy Project CARS 3 before it’s delisted forever

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Another racing game bites the digital dust, thanks to expiring licenses

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Another racing game bites the digital dust, thanks to expiring licenses

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You’ve got less than a month to buy Project CARS 3 before it’s delisted forever

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You’ve got less than a month to buy Project CARS 3 before it’s delisted forever

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You’ve got less than a month to buy Project CARS 3 before it’s delisted forever

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Another racing game bites the digital dust, thanks to expiring licenses

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Another racing game bites the digital dust, thanks to expiring licenses

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Welcome to the year 2025, when the 30-year old PlayStation 1 games you relentlessly lobbied your parents to buy you for Christmas sit intact and playable in the attic, but the digital releases you bought yourself five years ago are prone to being shut down and delisted at a moment’s notice. Today’s case in point: the unfortunate Project CARS 3.

The game’s Steam, PlayStation and Xbox store pages were all updated this week with some bad news: it’s being taken down at the end of August. Here’s the official wording, via the Project CARS 3 Steam page.

"Update on PROJECT CARS 3. All product sales will end on: August 24th, 2025 23:59 UTC. Please note that times may vary by region. If you bought the game digitally it will remain in your library and can be redownloaded in the future. Any DLCs purchased before August 24th, 2025 23:59 UTC will still be available to use after this date. The game’s online modes will also remain active until February 24th, 2026."

This isn’t an isolated incident, as you may have noticed. In 2022 its predecessors, Project CARS 1 and 2 were both removed from storefronts too, much to our chagrin.

The reason? It’s all about licenses. Titles like these carry the official vehicle and track licenses from manufacturers and circuits for a limited time only, and when those licenses expire they’re not legally allowed to use them in a commercial product anymore. So, the publisher pulls the plug on them.

It also costs money to keep online services running. Multiplayer servers, leaderboards, along with UGC content like car liveries and tuning setups, all require ongoing server usage. That puts publishers and studios in an invidious position, because for most games the active user numbers dwindle over time to just a devoted few. These are the community diehards who’ll shout the loudest when their favourite game is abruptly taken down, or when functionality like online play is removed.

All of this means you have less than a month to add Project CARS 3 to your game library, or forever hold your peace. You’ll then have a year and a half to enjoy online racing before it becomes an offline-only experience.

In truth, this isn’t the bitterest blow racing fans have faced, because Project CARS 3 was some way short of a classic. During a time of tumult for developer Slightly Mad Studios in which it was acquired by F1 developer Codemasters, who were subsequently acquired by EA themselves shortly after, the 2020 third instalment to what had previously been a realism-first racing experience went all sim-cade.

The handling model took an abrupt left-turn into much more forgiving and accessible territory. The structure of its career mode seemed to be copying Race Driver: GRID’s homework. In short, it felt a lot like Codemasters’ own GRID games, which was very confusing. And to the Project CARS devotees, more than a bit disappointing.

But let’s not focus on that, when the poor game’s on its way out. Let’s instead mention that you can pick it up for posterity for a mere, ahem, £49.99, before it’s returned to the primordial digital ooze where games go when they die.

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Welcome to the year 2025, when the 30-year old PlayStation 1 games you relentlessly lobbied your parents to buy you for Christmas sit intact and playable in the attic, but the digital releases you bought yourself five years ago are prone to being shut down and delisted at a moment’s notice. Today’s case in point: the unfortunate Project CARS 3.

The game’s Steam, PlayStation and Xbox store pages were all updated this week with some bad news: it’s being taken down at the end of August. Here’s the official wording, via the Project CARS 3 Steam page.

"Update on PROJECT CARS 3. All product sales will end on: August 24th, 2025 23:59 UTC. Please note that times may vary by region. If you bought the game digitally it will remain in your library and can be redownloaded in the future. Any DLCs purchased before August 24th, 2025 23:59 UTC will still be available to use after this date. The game’s online modes will also remain active until February 24th, 2026."

This isn’t an isolated incident, as you may have noticed. In 2022 its predecessors, Project CARS 1 and 2 were both removed from storefronts too, much to our chagrin.

The reason? It’s all about licenses. Titles like these carry the official vehicle and track licenses from manufacturers and circuits for a limited time only, and when those licenses expire they’re not legally allowed to use them in a commercial product anymore. So, the publisher pulls the plug on them.

It also costs money to keep online services running. Multiplayer servers, leaderboards, along with UGC content like car liveries and tuning setups, all require ongoing server usage. That puts publishers and studios in an invidious position, because for most games the active user numbers dwindle over time to just a devoted few. These are the community diehards who’ll shout the loudest when their favourite game is abruptly taken down, or when functionality like online play is removed.

All of this means you have less than a month to add Project CARS 3 to your game library, or forever hold your peace. You’ll then have a year and a half to enjoy online racing before it becomes an offline-only experience.

In truth, this isn’t the bitterest blow racing fans have faced, because Project CARS 3 was some way short of a classic. During a time of tumult for developer Slightly Mad Studios in which it was acquired by F1 developer Codemasters, who were subsequently acquired by EA themselves shortly after, the 2020 third instalment to what had previously been a realism-first racing experience went all sim-cade.

The handling model took an abrupt left-turn into much more forgiving and accessible territory. The structure of its career mode seemed to be copying Race Driver: GRID’s homework. In short, it felt a lot like Codemasters’ own GRID games, which was very confusing. And to the Project CARS devotees, more than a bit disappointing.

But let’s not focus on that, when the poor game’s on its way out. Let’s instead mention that you can pick it up for posterity for a mere, ahem, £49.99, before it’s returned to the primordial digital ooze where games go when they die.