Last October, Codemasters released a job posting that claimed the studio was working on one of the "most ambitious and massive games" in more than 10 years. Many have speculated that it could be a new game in the Dust series, such as Dust Rally 3 (as Dust 5 is already on sale in 2020), but for now, it looks like the developer has other plans.
According to a report posted on Exputer by well-known sources Tom Henderson, the ambitious AAA new game that Codemasters is referring to is actually the next FIA World Rally Championship game. Although the WRC game is currently developed by Kylotonn, released by Nacon. But in June 2020, Codemasters announced that it had obtained this IP license, starting in 2023 and at least until 2027.
Henderson said that while Dust Rally 3 is indeed in development, the project has been cancelled later in 2021. Now it seems that Codemasters has hidden the IP of "Dust", and now the developer is focusing on the "F1" series, "WRC" series and "GRID" series.
But it also seems that the development path for this ambitious new work is also very difficult, the report said, due to the poor management of Codemasters leadership and EA – including contract renewal issues, team members' demands were ignored in meetings, etc. – resulting in a significant reduction in QA staff, from about 200 to about 120 people.
There's no word yet on when the new game will go on sale, but it's said it could go on sale sometime next year.