After a couple of years with Sony controlling the exclusive rights to the FIA Formula One World Championship games, they decided to no longer be willing to pay the licensing fees. This opened the door for Codemasters to secure the rights to FIA Formula One World Championship games on both the console and PC systems.

Codemasters has plenty of experience developing racing games, as they are known for titles such as TOCA, DiRT, and their latest title that is just coming to market called GRID. GRID will launch June 3rd and feature Codemaster’s new EGO engine, which is the latest in a long line of Codemaster’s racing engines designed to deliver a best-in-class racing experience to both console and PC systems.

While initial details are a bit sketchy as to specifically what platforms we can expect them to deliver, the Formula 1 title for it is expected to be released for console and handheld systems as well as the PC. No specific release date was announced, but it is expected that it will likely be next year before we see a new F1 title from Codemasters.

It is quite lucky that Codemasters was able to secure the rights to F1, as they have enough experience developing racing games, so they should be able to produce something that will be pretty special. What they have been able to do in the past with the smaller racing licenses that they have has been pretty exceptional.

With a studio that has this kind of experience producing racing games, it would seem that the future will be quite bright for F1 video games. (Not to mention that since Codemasters does not have an exclusive deal for one specific platform, more players who have an interest in racing titles will get to experience an F1 title on a variety of platforms).

The demo of GRID was just released and if this is just a small preview of what the EGO engine can do, then an F1 title should be exceptional using this new engine technology.

You can have a look at the GRID demo by clicking here.