The History of IndyCar Video Games: From Papyrus to iRacing
The history of IndyCar video games is a strange one. Ask a young fan to name the last dedicated IndyCar game and you will get a blank stare. To find one you have to go back to the PlayStation 2 era, which means an entire generation grew up with no IndyCar title to call its own.
The story of how the sport went from leading the racing-sim genre to disappearing from it, and now roaring back, is one of the more surprising arcs in racing games. Here is how it happened, decade by decade.
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➡️The First Real IndyCar Game in Over 20 Years Is Being Built by iRacing Studios
The history of Indycar video games, year by year
Papyrus starts it at Indy
Indianapolis 500: The Simulation, designed by Dave Kaemmer, is one of the first titles to cross from arcade game to true simulation. Kaemmer would later co-found iRacing.
The Papyrus peak
IndyCar Racing and IndyCar Racing II model an entire open-wheel season with a depth almost nothing else offered.
CART Precision Racing
Microsoft and Terminal Reality lean hard into simulation, even shipping driving-school tutorials to welcome newcomers.
The Codemasters games
IndyCar Series (PS2, Xbox, PC) and its follow-up are the games fans remember, and the last full dedicated IndyCar console titles for a very long time.
Twenty years in the wilderness
No standalone IndyCar game. Open-wheel cars survive as guest content elsewhere, and iRacing quietly becomes the real home of virtual IndyCar.
The one that never shipped
Motorsport Games signs a deal with an early target of 2023. The project stalls and is ultimately shelved.
iRacing picks up the torch
August 26: iRacing and IndyCar announce a long-term license for iRacing Studios to build standalone IndyCar games.
INDYCAR Racing The Game
Named July 10, 2026. Coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in early 2027, timed to the Indy 500 countdown, and built from scratch. IndyCar gaming comes home.
There is a nice symmetry here. The genre that IndyCar helped define back in 1989, through the studio a young Dave Kaemmer started, is now being carried forward by the company he went on to build. After more than twenty years away, IndyCar gaming is not just returning. It is coming home.
We do not know the full feature set, the roster, or the exact release date yet. But for the first time in a generation, the history of IndyCar video games has a future chapter worth waiting for.
