It seems that Electronic Arts doesn’t want to give the franchise another episode, because the publisher’s priorities are elsewhere…

Electronic Arts has confirmed that Need For Speed developer Criterion will not be making a new episode of the franchise. The reason is that Criterion is also working hard on the future of Battlefield and therefore does not have the capacity to create a new episode after Need For Speed Unbound.

Vince Zampella, co-founder of Respawn and head of the Battlefield franchise, said that after Need For Speed Unbound, which will be released in 2022, Criterion is now all-in on Battlefield: “The Need for Speed team at Criterion is joining their colleagues working on Battlefield. As a company, it was important for us to take the last year to listen to our Need for Speed community and use their feedback to create content for Need for Speed Unbound. With a better understanding of what our players want from a Need for Speed experience, we plan to bring the franchise back in new and interesting ways,” Zampella said in a statement to Eurogamer today.

Zampella’s statement coincided with the release of the first pre-alpha gameplay footage of the upcoming Battlefield game, as well as details of a new community testing program that players can now sign up for. Criterion is one of four internal Electronic Arts studios building a cohesive Battlefield universe set in the modern era. They are focusing primarily on single-player content for the next installment in the series. Back in 2020, we heard from the publisher that Criterion had taken back development of Need For Speed as they planned to restructure (downgrade) Ghost Games. The team had worked on four episodes before Need For Speed Unbound.

Best known for the Burnout series, Criterion also developed two previous Need for Speed titles. Hot Pursuit (2010) and Most Wanted (2012). They also contributed to 2013’s Need for Speed Rivals and later worked on DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront II, Battlefield V and Battlefield 2042.

Source: VGC