Project CARS has been delayed to March 2015, pushed back from its planned November 2014 launch, publisher Bandai Namco announced. The game, from Slightly Mad Studios, is a realistic driving simulation with a sandbox approach, giving you immediate access to all cars and tracks from the start.
On the game’s private forums, the developer cites the need for additional polish, as well as competitive concerns, as the reasons for the change.
“This delay has come about because a couple of other big games have announced they are shipping around the same time as our planned first date,” wrote project director Andy Garton. “We know it might be a little hard to believe but this would have had a very significant impact on our initial sales.”
Related: Project Morpheus puts you behind the wheel in Project CARS racing game
Project CARS (“Community Assisted Racing Simulator”) was developed with a combination of crowdfunding and money from the studio itself, skirting around the need for a traditional publisher agreement. Interested players could purchase Tool Packs that provided access to the development process. Most intriguingly, the studio has promised to share a portion of the profits from the game’s first three years with members for their contributions, bringing crowdfunding closer to a traditional investment model.
Project CARS will come to PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on March 17 in the U.S. and March 20 in Europe, with Wii U and Linux/SteamOS versions to follow later in 2015. The originally-announced PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions have been cancelled.
