Frontier’s first Formula 1 management sim is will release this calendar year, the Elite Dangerous and Planet Zoo developer has confirmed.
Giving an update for the first half of the financial year, Frontier revealed that they have high hopes for this new annual franchise for the management game experts.
“We are very well positioned for the future,” they write. “This calendar year will see us enter the incredible world of Formula 1 – a truly global sport – with the first release for our annual F1 management game franchise.”
Little is known about the F1 game at this time, but Frontier first announced that they were working on this project in March 2020. We have to expect that they will reveal the title in the coming months as interest in the sport builds in the run up to the start of the 2022 season in March and the massively different regulations that will transform what the cars look like and how they perform. However, the game will launch in the next financial year which, for Frontier, starts in June 2022.
In some ways they will be going toe-to-toe with the next F1 game from Codemasters, which typically releases around the British Grand Prix in July. The last few years has seen Codemasters beef up their career mode to include more and more team-management elements, though we obviously expect that Frontier can put a lot more detail and nuance into a dedicated management sim. See our F1 2021 review here.
The financial update was not all positive. Jurassic World Evolution 2 is at ‘nearly’ 1 million units sold since November, with the game’s prospects dented somewhat by not being able to release around the same time as the postponed Jurassic World Dominion film release – they’re hoping for a bump in interest when that does release later this year. Similarly, while revenues rose by 33%, the company was working with lower margins and posted an operating loss as they have expanded significantly over the past few years.
Two games are expected to release in the next six months – FAR: Changing Tides and Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters – both from the Frontier Foundry publishing arm, but revenue guidance has been reduced for the remainder of this year and the next, leading to a 255 drop in share prices. Furthermore, their Warhammer: Age of Sigmar real-time strategy game that was planned for release in 2023 has now slipped to the first half of 2024.
Source: Frontier
