In a move that is part surprising and still quite welcome, EA have announced that Need for Speed is pulling a 180 and heading back to Criterion, years after EA moved development to another studio.

After 2012 Need for Speed Most Wanted, EA spun up Ghost Games and the bulk of the studio at Criterion found themselves over there, working on Need for Speed, while Criterion started helping DICE with Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield V. The release of 2013 Rivals was interesting as Ghost attempted to put their own spin on a series that players loved, but it didn’t work.

Even with the the 2015 reboot, 2017's Need for Speed: Payback and last year's Need for Speed: Heat, things never really clicked with games, though Heat was a massive step in the right direction. Prior to Criterion having the reigns, the series was primarily developed by then EA Black Box in Vancouver, but they seemed to release games that also failed to register with the gamers around the world.

While I would not have guessed this, in my Past and Present feature for EA, I did say the following:

Criterion as a developer has become mostly a support studio of late, but they have been quiet for a while, so something new from them would not be unheard of.

Most of the Ghost Games team will have new roles in different studios, but some folks will be impacted, of course as a big move, EA did release a statement about the change.

"With a strong history and passion for racing games and vision for what we can create, the Criterion team is going to take Need for Speed into the next-generation. Ghost Games have helped to bring some great Need for Speed experiences to our players. Consistently delivering that at AAA levels means we need teams with diverse skills in locations where we can continually support them and bring in new team members to join. Despite our best efforts to establish an independent development group in Gothenburg over several years, it's become clear that the breadth of talent we need to maintain a full AAA studio is just not available to us there. Criterion can also provide the consistent leadership that we need to continue creating and delivering new Need for Speed experiences for a long time to come.

"Criterion is a fantastic studio, and we're looking forward to adding to their talented team and building a great future for Need for Speed.  The engineering teams in Gothenburg are also vital to our ongoing plans across EA."

I can’t say if this is a good move, or a bad one at this point, while Ghost Games had issues, they were finally getting things right and while Criterion was an amazing developer the studio founders Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry left in 2014, taking some of the remaining core Need for Speed team with them.

As they have been a support studio for a while, things could take a while to get back into the swing of things, which means we might not see a new Need for Speed game on consoles for a couple of years, likely once we are well into the life cycle of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.