Hot off the heels of the latest entry in the series, Need for Speed: Heat, EA is shaking up development of the long-running franchise. The series has been in the hands of EA developer Ghost Games for the past few entries, but an old friend is coming back to take the wheel.
The Need for Speed franchise has had an up-and-down history over the years. For every solid entry in the series, there are one or two duds that drag the franchise back down to mediocrity. EA is hoping that a change in developer will breathe new life into the series.
EA is moving the franchise back into the hands of Criterion, a developer that last worked on the franchise in 2012 with Need for Speed: Most Wanted. While Criterion has experience working on the NFS franchise, it is probably best known for its Burnout series of games. In the past, EA has tried to avoid comparisons between Burnout and Need for Speed, but some of that Criterion magic might be needed to help the franchise reach its future goals.
The other side to this story is the fate of the Ghost Games studio, which will be re-re-branded as EA Gothenburg (the name the studio had when it was founded by EA in 2011). Despite Need for Speed: Heat setting a record for most concurrent launch week players—a pretty solid indicator of sales performance—the studio will be refocusing its efforts as an engineering hub working on the Frostbite game engine. This puts some 30 non-engineering positions in the company at risk as EA tries to move these employees into other divisions of the company.
EA cites a difficulty in attracting the right talent to their Gothenburg studio as a reason for shifting gears and going back to Criterion. "The breadth of talent we need to maintain a full AAA studio is just not available to us there." Criterion, on the other hand, has shown that it can sustain a title over a long period of time, which was likely a factor in EA's decision. With Criterion's history of quality racing titles and the talent & resources available at the studio, EA is banking on a return to form for the series.
Need for Speed: Heat is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Games Industry