Is delaying Need for Speed bad news? -apkrig
Almost exactly a year ago, Electronic Arts announced that the Need for Speed series was moving from Ghost Games to the famous Criterion studio. I wrote a short comment to that account, explaining that there are not many reasons to rejoice, given that not only the mentioned brand but also most of the developers traveled from Ghost Games. And you will surely recognize that if people do not change, we cannot expect a dramatic change in the results of their work, no matter what studio they meet. Last year’s topic, however, is followed by yesterday’s announcement by Laura Miele, director of Electronic Arts studios, which puts the situation around the expected continuation of Need for Speed in a slightly different light and is at least difficult to read what it actually means for the series. To understand this, according to EA, it is necessary to transfer a team from Criterion Games to develop a new Battlefield, which postpones the release of NFS to next year. Can it help the game, or is it more of a violent overthrow of existing plans, which will be difficult to follow up after the release of Battlefield?
Given that this is not a standard postponement, the immediate reactions of the fans were very mixed. We can’t automatically say that the game gets more time, so it will be even better if, due to circumstances, only a fragment of the original team can devote to it in the coming months. At the same time, it is not very big overall, if we take into account the numbers from 2017, which revealed less than a hundred employees, and we add to them the previously expressed interest in leaving the team. a little grow. It is estimated that 120-150 people can sit in the Guildford offices, who had the task of introducing Need for Speed on the new consoles yesterday’s announcement and let them forget about the failures of recent years. In the new working week, however, a completely new project landed in their lap, to which employees working from home now have to adapt as quickly as possible and start working together with the Swedish and American branches of DICE. In addition, Laura Miele pointed out that although the development of Battlefield is going well, the developers are already feeling tired and it is the help of Criterion that can help a lot.
Laura Miele has made it clear that the famous racing brand is being developed by Criterion Games, so at the moment the variant is that at the end of the year the studio should actually follow where it ended up these days.
However, several mentions of the complexity of game development, stress, burnout and the already mentioned fatigue worry me a lot and I can’t imagine a situation where none of this would affect the Criterion Games as well. The idea that at the end of the year they will push their faces in the sweat to release Battlefield 6 and without waiting they will throw themselves back to Need for Speed, for which they will only have about another 12 months, does not seem realistic to me and I would not be surprised by further changes or delays. An inconspicuous denial that people from Codemasters, who are now part of Electronic Arts, could possibly help with NFS, also plays a role in this. Miele has made it clear that the famous racing brand is being developed by Criterion Games, so at the moment the variant is that at the end of the year the studio should actually follow where it ended up these days. In addition, the potential cast of Codies could mean a mostly undesirable shift in the whole Need for Speed style, from which fans, according to numerous responses, ideally imagine a sequel to Underground, even though the pair of popular parts has little to do with where the NFS series began.
But I honestly wouldn’t mind if this attitude in Electronic Arts was at least partially reconsidered, for example with the memory of the first Grid or Need for Speed: Shift by Slightly Mad. I’m not saying that current plans for a seemingly more relaxed sequel to the series should be automatically canceled, but the Codies have proven several times in the past that they can get out of more sterile titles and deliver mainstream entertainment. Nothing else would have to be canceled or postponed when the new F1 year arrives in the expected time, which, according to Miele, EA will fulfill its racing commitment for this year, and consequently “only” part of the Codemasters would lend a hand to the work, similar to the Criterion now in connection with Battlefield. In addition, unlike the loud part of the community, I think it’s out of the blue undergroundových races, Need for Speed would only benefit while maintaining the emphasis on style or graphics, and the involvement of other developers would help to remove the sticker of the same team last year, which operates alternately under the Ghost Games and Criterion headers.
The people of Codemasters have proven several times in the past that they can get out of more sterile concepts and deliver mainstream entertainment.
The unexpected delay in connection with the fact that we know very little about the new NFS so far could therefore give Electronic Arts at least room to think about exactly where to move the series and especially how to apply the experience of the Codemasters, which has been mentioned many times. Wasting such huge potential for a possible change that players are calling for, even though they can’t name it clearly, would be a great pity and I will be very pleased personally if the unpleasant situation can be turned into something positive. On the other hand, I don’t want to get bogged down in thinking what all this means for Battlefield, which, despite reassurances from Laura Miele, doesn’t look like a project in shape, and even then I wouldn’t be surprised if bold plans for this year’s release didn’t work out. Let’s not forget that even the fans of this series are calling for change and in combination with the great ambitions of the developers, which includes the promise unprecedented size of the gameIt may not be easy to come up with a satisfactory result. However, it is evident that the coronavirus pandemic, which seemed to be an ideal opportunity for game developers last year, is beginning to hit very hard on individual teams, and delays or changes to plans need to be seen as inevitable.
