The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are both available worldwide now, if you can get your hands on the limited stock that is.
For racing fans that means better graphics, more responsive gameplay, and huge leaps forward in FPS.
After the return to form last year with NFS Heat and the remastered release of Hot Pursuit, the Need For Speed franchise has legs once again, but when will it hit the new consoles?
Next generation
The next main series NFS instalment will be the first on next-gen. When exactly this was going to be was guesswork until now.
We don’t have a definitive release date yet though; we don’t even have a title at the moment. The “fiscal year of 2022” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in the company’s latest financial report.
Given that NFS usually comes out late in the year, November 2021 is a likely month for the next game.
New developers, sort of
NFS is a series that’s been out on the market for over 25 years now and has gone through a lot of different developers in that time
While Ghost Games developed Heat, they have since been dropped by EA. Ghost have been replaced by Criterion, who had developed NFS games in the PS3/Xbox 360 era.
Criterion originally developed the Burnout series, something that becomes abundantly clear when you play 2010’s Hot Pursuit. Criterion also developed 2012’s Most Wanted and co-developed Rivals before Ghost took over the reins.
What to expect from next-gen
When leaping up to a new console generation, you always expect big strides in the quality of games. EA haven’t pulled any punches about what we can expect for 2021-22, including how many major releases we’ll see:
“We plan to launch at least six new games on the next-gen consoles in fiscal year 2022.”
“These will include a new Need for Speed game that is bringing some astounding visual leaps, developed by the Criterion team, who have launched some of the most highly-rated games in franchise history.”
Whether next-gen NFS will only be available on the new consoles remains to be seen. Given past form, though, you’d have to guess that it will be, especially since those new graphics won’t be easy to scale down.