Need For Speed just lost its developer, leaving its future up in the air

The future of Need For Speed has been surreptitiously shrouded in recent months. Earlier this year, EA confirmed it was forging ahead with the iconic racing franchise. However, developer Criterion Games has ostensibly been shifted away from its vroom vroom duties to focus on its boom boom duties. That's because Criterion is now "A Battlefield Studio," which supports claims that EA's shooter is set to rival Call of Duty on an annual basis.

Where do I start with Need For Speed? The series that brought us some of the best racing games like Underground 2, Most Wanted, and my fave of faves, Carbon, has been shifted around internally like a big game of pass-the-parcel over the years. EA Vancouver, then Black Box (later EA Black Box), Criterion, Ghost Games, then back to Criterion - it's been a journey. In 2022, Criterion most recently offered up Need For Speed Unbound, a reinvented, cel-shaded vision for the series that, for me, was a step in the right direction.

In 2023, EA announced that the majority of Criterion's devs would be refocusing their efforts for the foreseeable future on the then-unannounced Battlefield 6, leaving a smattering of staff behind to continue whittling away on Need For Speed. In February, Battlefield boss Vince Zampella reaffirmed that the racing series was still bubbling away in the pot.

"With an increased understanding of what our players want in a Need for Speed experience, we plan to bring the franchise back in new and interesting ways," Zampella told Eurogamer at the time.

However, last month, Matthew Everingham, contributor for EA-funded racing photography collective Speedhunters, said in a Facebook post that the publisher had 'quietly parked' Need For Speed. Though Everingham's comment is far from official confirmation, the latest development, that Criterion has now seemingly become a full-fledged support studio as per its website branding, lends credence to it.

Criterion being taken off NFS wouldn't surprise me, considering the recent rumors that EA is targeting annual Battlefield releases. In January, former Dice employee 'Rizible' claimed this is series general manager Byron Beede's vision. In a recent 'Pachter Factor' episode, industry analyst Michael Pachter says he heard it directly from the horse's mouth.

"I talked to Byron Beede […] and their goal is three studios making Battlefield on a three-year basis, so they can get to Battlefield annually," Pachter says. "And he said it's going to take five or six years before they get two in a row, so we're not going to get there for a while."

So where does this leave Need For Speed? Well, there's every chance that same incubation group that had previously been working on it will be shifted into a new division dedicated to it; plans for Criterion to move over to Battlefield duty full-time likely will have been ratified long before Zampella's comments, though this is purely conjecture. At best, we'll still be waiting a while for the next installment. At worst, well, at least I still have Carbon.

PCGN has reached out to EA for comment. This article will be updated should we get further clarification.

While the franchise's future is very much up in the air, take a look some more of the best multiplayer games and best open-world games you can enjoy until it returns… if it returns.

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