IndyCar video games have had a stranger journey than almost any other racing franchise. The first great one appeared in 1989. For a while in the early 1990s, IndyCar had two of the best racing simulations on the market. Then the games largely disappeared for two decades. On July 10, 2026, iRacing Studios and INDYCAR revealed the official name and launch window: INDYCAR Racing The Game will arrive in early 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox, and PC via Steam. After 30 years of starts, stops, and near-abandonment, IndyCar video games finally look like they have a real future.
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Where IndyCar Video Games Began
The story begins at Papyrus Design Group, a small studio founded in 1987 by Dave Kaemmer and Omar Khudari in Watertown, Massachusetts. Their first title, Indianapolis 500: The Simulation, arrived in 1989 and stood apart from everything else in PC gaming. Because Kaemmer’s team had built a genuine simulation of oval racing, with realistic tire behavior and chassis physics that no other developer was attempting, it crossed the line from game into something closer to the real thing. Many sim racers point to it as the moment the genre was born.
Papyrus followed up in 1993 with IndyCar Racing, which earned Computer Gaming World’s Simulation Game of the Year award. Two years later, IndyCar Racing II arrived and was named the best computer racing simulation of 1995 by Computer Games Strategy Plus. For a stretch in the mid-1990s, Papyrus owned sim racing, and IndyCar video games were at the center of it. No other series had anything close in terms of depth or accuracy.
NASCAR’s Rise and the End of the Papyrus Era
Between those two IndyCar titles, Papyrus released NASCAR Racing in 1994. It sold more than a million copies, a number that dwarfed anything in the sim racing space at the time. That commercial success shifted the studio’s priorities permanently. Sierra On-Line acquired Papyrus in late 1995, and from that point, NASCAR dominated the catalog. Grand Prix Legends came in 1998, but that was Formula 1, not IndyCar. The last Papyrus sim was NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. Many still consider it the gold standard for oval racing simulations.
Papyrus shut its doors in 2004. Meanwhile, IndyCar as a sport was fractured by the split between CART and the Indy Racing League, which ran competing open-wheel series for most of a decade. That chaos made the license complicated to work with. Publishers looked at the market and found no clear path to profit. As a result, IndyCar video games largely stopped being made.
Two Decades Without IndyCar Video Games
The last real standalone IndyCar game for most fans was IndyCar Series 2005. Indianapolis 500 Evolution arrived in 2009, but it was a budget release that failed to find an audience. After that, nothing. For roughly 15 years, there was no dedicated IndyCar video game. Meanwhile, F1 and NASCAR both grew with annual releases. The broader racing genre kept expanding, but IndyCar had no new entry on consoles or PC.
Motorsport Games tried to change that by securing an IndyCar license in the early 2020s. However, that project was eventually abandoned due to development challenges and financial problems at the studio. By 2024, fans had been waiting nearly two decades for a credible modern IndyCar game. The Motorsport Games episode left many wondering if it was ever going to happen.
How iRacing Kept IndyCar Racing Alive in Sim
While the standalone game market went quiet, iRacing kept IndyCar alive for serious sim racers. Dave Kaemmer, the same developer behind the Papyrus sims, co-founded iRacing. The service launched in 2008, and it carried forward the DNA of the studio that built the original IndyCar video games. The Dallara IR-18 became one of the flagship cars on the platform, and IndyCar content grew to include laser-scanned versions of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Nashville Superspeedway, Portland International Raceway, and most of the series’ key circuits.
Additionally, iRacing runs the INDYCAR Thrustmaster Pro Series, one of the longest-running official esports programs in open-wheel racing. For sim racers who wanted the most authentic IndyCar experience available in gaming, iRacing was the only real answer for years. The physics team is currently building a full hybrid system for the Dallara IR-18, replicating the manual deployment model used by real IndyCar drivers on track today.
What INDYCAR Racing The Game Means for IndyCar Video Games
On August 26, 2025, iRacing Studios and INDYCAR announced a long-term licensing agreement to produce standalone console games. The title is being built on iRacing Studios’ proprietary Orontes engine, which also powers NASCAR 25 and World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing. On July 10, 2026, the official name and logo landed: INDYCAR Racing The Game, launching in early 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.
INDYCAR Racing The Game will be the first dedicated standalone IndyCar title in more than two decades. It will include a career mode, licensed drivers from the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and INDY NXT by Firestone, online multiplayer, and circuits from across the schedule. “This is a project our team has been passionate about for a long time,” said Tony Gardner, iRacing president. “We are bringing everything we know about authentic, immersive racing to consoles and PC, and creating an experience worthy of the INDYCAR name.”
The timing connects directly to the 2027 Indianapolis 500. Launching in the countdown to the 500 gives INDYCAR Racing The Game a natural cultural moment. For open-wheel fans who grew up on Papyrus sims, or who have spent years running IndyCar video games through iRacing, this is not just another racing title. It is the return of something that should have existed all along.
IndyCar video games have a compressed and unusual history: exceptional at the start, absent for too long, and now returning at a moment when both the series and the studio behind the game are operating at a high level. What Dave Kaemmer helped build in 1989 set the standard for what a racing simulation could be. INDYCAR Racing The Game, arriving from the same lineage 38 years later, is the payoff.
