Multi Criterion will no longer lead Need For Speed games, Ghost taking control of franchise

Jan 29, 2009
7,187
Swedish studio Ghost Games has been given control over all future titles in the Need For Speed series, studio head Marcus Nilsson has revealed - just a year after Need For Speed: Most Wanted developer Criterion announced that they had taken ownership.
ghost games -

Speaking to VideoGamer.com about the future of the racing series at Gamescom, Nilsson said that he believes "Need For Speed needs continuity", and that EA is "now thinking about the brand as Ghost owns it".

"It cannot go from black to white between Black Box and Criterion, and that's why we're now thinking about the brand as Ghost owns it," he said. "We're going to build it, we're going to build it on Frostbite 3, [and] people will see something they are familiar with every time we release the game. And I think that is the core basis of building a brand; that people know what to expect."

...

Asked whether future games in the series would alternate between Ghost and Criterion year-on-year, Nilsson replied: "No, you're not going to see that."

...

But with Ghost now in control of Need For Speed, where does that leave Criterion?

"There's a small part of Criterion working on something else," Nilsson says. "Criterion is absolutely helping us out a lot on this game and would we make something next year or whenever we do it, it's going to be something that is ultimately driven from Ghost."

...

VideoGamer.com checked in with EA yesterday to confirm that Ghost had been given full responsibility over Need For Speed and whether Criterion would remain involved with the series beyond Rivals, and was told by the publisher that it "had nothing further to add as [Marcus] has answered your questions accurately".

http://www.videogamer.com/ps4/need_...akes_control_of_the_need_for_speed_brand.html
 
Criterions work on the Burnout series was mostly excellent but whilst solid their NFS titles haven't been up to the same standard. Hopefully handing it over to another studio will free Criterions resources up to put their efforts back into their own series and see us get something special again.
 
Criterions work on the Burnout series was mostly excellent but whilst solid their NFS titles haven't been up to the same standard. Hopefully handing it over to another studio will free Criterions resources up to put their efforts back into their own series and see us get something special again.

Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted are the best Need for Speeds since Undeground and the original Most Wanted.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4
 
The reason why I think it's good is because Ghost is located in Sweden and in a town where there have been short of game developers. But that's only because I'm from Sweden. Ghost have yet to release a game for me to say anything about that but using Frostbite for everything is a great start.
 
Completely agree that they're better games than the earlier NFS entries, I'd say they pale to the Burnout series though. I can let Hot Pursuit slide more as it's different enough but Most Wanted was Paradise: Inferior Edition.