Project CARS on Wii U earns a DNF, officially cancelled

Did not finish

While Slightly Mad Studios’ Project CARS has been zooming past one million sales on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, it won’t get off the starting line on Wii U. That had been the murmured whisper around town, but the studio has now officially declared it.

Speaking with Nintendo Life, Slightly Mad head Ian Bell said “The official line is that we’re awaiting an announcement from Nintendo on new hardware. As of now, [Project Cars] is simply too much for the Wii U.”

That’s not a surprising result given the last update we had was that the game was running around 23 frames per second on Nintendo’s most recent console. As gorgeous as Project CARS was, even the three released platforms (especially consoles) struggled at times to keep pace when the game was at its most demanding — usually when rendering rain effects. 

For now, Slightly Mad will surely focus on the already-announced sequel and the crowdfunding efforts that accompany it. We don’t know what Nintendo’s timeline for its next machine looks like, so there’s no telling if the next Project CARS will cross that finish line either. Nintendo fans might be best served to stop holding out hope for this franchise and go the “pleasantly surprised” route if a game ever ends up on one of the Mario maker’s consoles.

Exclusive: Project CARS “Simply Too Much For Wii U”, Developer Now Waiting On New Nintendo Hardware [Nintendo Life]