A New Need For Speed Game Will Arrive Eventually, But Criterion Is Focusing On Battlefield For Now

With Criterion being called out as one of the many teams that make up EA’s newly titled Battlefield Studios, players who like driving really fast cars, who you might even say have a ‘need’ for doing so, were left wondering what’ll happen to Criterion’s Need for Speed games.

Vince Zampella, the man who always seems to be EA’s first call when it comes to any of its big franchises needing new leadership, told fans in a statement to Eurogamer that Need for Speed fans need not worry. The series has not been forgotten, Criterion just has to be all-hands-on-deck with Battlefield right now.

“The Need for Speed team at Criterion are joining their colleagues working on Battlefield. As a company, it was important to us to take the last year and listen to our Need for Speed community and use their feedback to create content for Unbound,” Zampella said.

“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.”

All the way back in 2023, just months ahead of the announcement that Criterion had been acquired by EA, a job listing pointed to Criterion having already begun working on the next Need for Speed title.

It’s possible that whatever began in 2023 is still continuing at a snails pace in a kind of prolonged incubation process, but even if that is the case, it’ll still be a long time before we see a new Need for Speed game.

Need for Speed Unbound released in 2022, and at time of writing it’s the beginning of 2025, and as far as we know Criterion has barely even started working on the next entry in the series. At this rate, we might not see a new Need for Speed game until 2028, perhaps 2027 at the earliest.

Source – [Eurogamer]