The Criterion Games team has been pulled from Need for Speed: Unbound to work on the next Battlefield, leaving the game confirmed to be no longer receiving new content. The IP isn’t dead, though, as it plans on revisiting it down the line.
As reported by IGN, EA put Need for Speed: Unbound on ice in order to get Criterion to work on the new Battlefield game, but EA plans on bringing the series back in “new and interesting ways,” according to EA. In the end, this is its way of listening to the community and understanding what players actually want in a NFS game.
“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 to listen to our Need for Speed community and use their feedback to create content for Unbound. 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.”
It is weird, though, as unlike other EA studios that have its hand in the Battlefield cookie jar, Criterion isn’t working on another project, unlike Motive, which is also working on the next entry. The parent company has already shown this to be a high-priority project for it, with CEO Andrew Wilson labeling it as a “tremendous live service.”
We still don’t know when the next Battlefield will be released.
