Forza Horizon veterans team up with Focus Entertainment for new open-world racer CLUTCH

Focus Entertainment has partnered with Maverick Games to publish CLUTCH, a brand-new open-world racing game from a studio packed with former Forza Horizon talent.

The game is looking to launch in Spring 2027 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, marking Focus Entertainment’s first major step into the open-world racing genre.

If you haven’t heard about Maverick Games yet, it was founded by a group of veteran developers including former Forza Horizon creative director Mike Brown, so you know what they’re doing when it comes to car games.

Investing into an actual story

What’s interesting about CLUTCH is that rather than simply giving us another enormous map filled with races, it is going big on its story which is being written by Jamie Brittain, co-creator of British TV series Skins.

You will take on the role of a new generation racing outsider living something of a double life. During the day, you’ll compete at the highest levels of professional motorsport, while night sees you enter a more dangerous underground racing scene built around reputation.

There’ll still be plenty for those more interested in cars than characters, of course. Maverick Games is promising deep vehicle customisation, allowing you to alter your cars while shaping your own progression through the game.

Focus Entertainment Deputy CEO Vincent Chataignier said the publisher looks for creators capable of redefining their respective genres, describing Brown and his team as some of the racing genre’s “defining creative voices”.

Brown, meanwhile, said Maverick Games was founded specifically to create the open-world racing experience its developers had wanted to build for years.

There’s still plenty we don’t know about CLUTCH, including exactly where its open world will be located and how its day and night racing scenes will work in practice, but we’re sure all of this will be unveiled in due course.