Need for Speed series returns to Criterion Games

Ghost Games developed the last three Need for Speed titles. Unfortunately, none of them – not the 2015 Need for Speed reboot, Need for Speed Payback, or even Need for Speed Heat – managed to break the 70-point mark on Metacritic. Meanwhile, Criterion Games' last entry, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, scored a solid 84 on the same site. That's a pretty respectable score for a racing game.

While a game's community rating might not be a publisher's top concern, profitability certainly is. And the last three games also struggled with profitability.

That's why Criterion Games is returning as the developer for the Need for Speed series.

For the past few years, Criterion has primarily acted as a support studio, contributing to vehicles and space battles in DICE's Battlefield and Battlefront series. Now, the roles have reversed: Criterion will once again develop its own games, while Ghost Games will become EA Gothenburg – a development and support team for DICE's Frostbite Engine.

It's hard to say if this is for the better. For instance, I personally really enjoyed Need for Speed Heat and still play it occasionally. The day-night concept was quite interesting and convenient. Plus, the game features a casual but incredibly enjoyable and low-stress drifting system.

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Give Heat a try. At times, I found myself thinking, 'This is it, the Underground I've been waiting for.' Yes, the game doesn't have a ton of tuning options, and sometimes the gameplay devolves into a boring grind for cash or reputation to get a new ride (looking at you, my Nissan Skyline), but the racing itself is pretty well done.

Unfortunately, the studio struggled with game optimization. But is Ghost Games truly to blame? Not at all. Electronic Arts practically forces its Frostbite Engine on all its controlled developers. And that engine, in turn, is clearly not a silver bullet. It works great for Battlefield, sure. But definitely not for racing games.

Now, about Criterion Games. I really liked Burnout Paradise, but I definitely didn't appreciate them bringing so many Burnout features into Need for Speed (like the annoying, frustrating, and frankly idiotic crash cam when hitting oncoming traffic, and those "canonical" NFS jumps into billboards, etc.).

Ultimately, we should, of course, wait for the new Need for Speed incarnation from Criterion Games before drawing conclusions. But their past work on the popular series personally doesn't inspire much confidence in me.

Source: WccfTech