In case you were waiting for the latest Need For Speed series, get ready to be disappointed as Electronic Arts’ chief studio’s officer, Laura Miele, says that Need for Speed has been delayed by almost a year.
Initially, EA had instructed Criterion Games studio to develop the upcoming series of Need for Speed, but then it was instructed to help finish Battlefield 6, which will launch this fall. Miele said the following in an interview with Polygon:
“I think that there’s been, you know, fatigue and some burnout, working from home… a lot of that even has to do with just the needs that people have with their families; some people are taking care of their kids at home, so our productivity is not as high, and then the creative connection and creative energy isn’t as high when they’re working from home.”
Covid has affected the timeline of events, and even game developers had to slow down due to work from home policy.
Although NFS is delayed, EA has announced a $1.2 billion acquisition of racing developer Codemasters last year and plans to release a racing game(probably F1 2021) later this year. Other Codemasters-helmed games like Dirt, Grid, and Project Cars are also under development.
Coming back to the Battlefield series, Battlefield V, the last game in the series, made its debut in 2018, and it’s been quite a time since a new edition has been released. With Criterion support, Battlefield 6 is bound to be a success, and this will be the first time that EA will provide native support for both next-generation consoles: the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Via Polygon