After five years of regional testing and a dominant run across Asian app stores, Racing Master is finally crossing the finish line for Western players. NetEase Games and Codemasters' joint mobile racing project launches globally tomorrow, May 8, across iOS and Android in Europe, North America, and the Middle East.
Five Years in the Making
Racing Master was first announced back in 2021 as an ambitious attempt to bring console-quality racing to phones. The Codemasters partnership — the same studio behind the F1, GRID, and DiRT franchises — signaled that NetEase was not interested in building another casual racer with tilt controls and energy timers. They wanted something that would hold up against the best the genre has to offer on any platform.
The game spent years cycling through closed betas and soft launches across Asian markets, where it promptly tore through the competition. Racing Master topped the App Store free game charts across multiple territories, held the number-one spot on download charts for 10 consecutive days in key markets, and picked up several regional Game of the Year awards in 2025.
120 Cars, Real Circuits, and Sounds Recorded From the Actual Vehicles
The lineup is staggering for a free-to-play title. Over 120 officially licensed vehicles from more than 30 brands fill the garage, including marques like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and McLaren. Each car has been modeled with attention to detail that pushes well beyond what most players expect from a phone game.
The track list draws from real-world circuits that motorsport fans will recognize immediately. Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Red Bull Ring, Yas Marina Circuit, and Shanghai International Circuit are all present, alongside city street courses threading through Chicago, San Francisco, Barcelona, Sicily, Amsterdam, and the Alps. The audio team went a step further by recording engine sounds from the actual cars, so the difference between a turbocharged inline-four and a naturally aspirated V12 is not just cosmetic.
What Awaits Global Players
Pre-registration has been live since April 9, and players who participated in earlier closed betas will receive a 150% rebate on their previous in-game gem purchases when the global version goes live — a generous gesture that should bring the beta community back immediately.
The global launch builds on everything NetEase learned from the Asian rollout. Server infrastructure has been expanded, localization covers all major Western languages, and the competitive multiplayer framework has been stress-tested across millions of concurrent players in regions where the game has already been running for months.
Filling the Gap
Racing Master is stepping into a Western market that has been oddly underserved when it comes to serious racing sims on phones. While console and PC players have no shortage of options from Forza to Gran Turismo, phone gamers have largely been stuck choosing between arcade-focused experiences and aging ports. A game built from the ground up for the hardware, backed by Codemasters' racing pedigree and five years of iterative development, could fill a gap that has been wide open for far too long.
Racing Master launches tomorrow, May 8, as a free-to-play title on both the App Store and Google Play.
