Even though the release of the new Need For Speed is only a few days away, Criterion’s latest game, which could have been released earlier if Electronic Arts hadn’t forced them to develop Battlefield 2042, has been leaked.

Someone had the opportunity to get the game before its release (and even before the release of the Palace, or deluxe edition, three days earlier), which means that they most likely got a retail, physical copy, which doesn’t have the first-day patch on it because the trend these days is to start every AAA game by downloading a massive update to go with it.

Nineteen minutes of gameplay from Need For Speed Unbound have been leaked to YouTube. Electronic Arts, the publisher, will likely have them removed from Google’s video-sharing service shortly. Still, it’s no use because we’ve downloaded the two clips, so good luck getting them off our hard drives (especially as we’re storing them on a PC that’s more than eight years old and hasn’t been upgraded since). So the game was being worked on by Criterion Games, as Ghost Games (who entered development with 2013’s Need For Speed: Rivals) were downgraded to a supporting studio and lost their name in the process (they reverted to their original name: EA Gothenburg).

The picture quality could be better, with the 15-minute video in 720p and the shorter one in 1080p, and neither has what looks like a 60 FPS frame rate. Even so, the marketing around the game has been unusually low-key. Although it’s been several years since the project’s existence was announced, it was only on October 6 that Need For Speed Unbound was announced after months of rumors.

Need For Speed Unbound will be released on December 2 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC, with Palace Edition (or EA Play Pro subscribers) able to play from November 29. And if YouTube deletes the two videos, they can be downloaded here and here.

Source: WCCFTech