Codemasters grab F1 licence, game in ’09

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Codemasters has revealed they’ve got access to the coveted F1 licence, and will use it to develop a title based on the 2009 F1 season. The game will be released on 360 and PS3 as well as unspecified handhelds and PC. They boast their game will be the first to have Lewis Hamilton make an apparence in it.

Formula One is ambitious in expanding its reach with more circuits planned beyond recent additions in the Middle East and China. It is also ambitious in expanding its reach via technology” commets Rod Cousens, chief executive officers of Codemasters,

The digital communities that computer and video gaming creates will play a key role in further growing the F1 audience and connecting them globally. As a world-leading creator of driving games, this alliance with F1 is the jewel in Codemasters’ racing crown and creates an undisputed segment champion.

Chris Denning, chairman of Codemasters, added: “Codemasters’ success and recent innovations in the racing game space makes the company more than appropriately tuned for the challenge. The combination of F1’s new momentum of expansion and Codemasters’ contemporary technology and past experience is the breaking of a new dawn for the sport, on the track and on the HD game screen.

Work on the game has apparently already begun at with 350 people already working hard on the project. An updated version of the EGO Engine from Colin McRae: DIRT and the upcoming Race Driver: GRID will used to build the game.