Need for Speed's 2022 entry has been rumoured and theorised about throughout the whole year, but what is happening with it? It's very hard to keep up and sort fact from fiction, but here's our take on the whole situation.
What is happening with Need for Speed?
Need for Speed is one of the most popular and financially successful racing game series of all time. It's been on the go for almost thirty years now, but we haven't seen a longer gap between entries in the series' history.
If you don't count NFS: Hot Pursuit Remastered, November will mark three years since NFS Heat launched in 2019. So, what's the holdup? Because NFS was meant to remain a bi-annual series.
Well, several factors have got in the way of a game that was meant to launch last year. The first is that the pandemic made everything run slower, especially for a Criterion studio that hadn't made a new NFS game since 2013.
Added to that, Criterion were drafted in to help EA develop Battlefield 2042 last year. However, Codemasters (also owned by EA) have been rumoured to be helping Criterion with NFS.
EA claimed as recently as August that NFS is still on track for a 2022 release, but we're far from convinced.
The signs don't look good
Rumours from earlier in the year suggested that NFS 2022 could've been revealed at the Summer Game Fest, but that never happened. In fact, the last time we heard anything official was a delay of one month from VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb.
EA still insist that NFS 2022 will launch between 1st October and 31 December. However, 1st October is now days away and we still haven't seen any gameplay, nor a trailer. We still don't even know what the game will be known as!
It's no secret that NFS is in need of a revamp and the next game reportedly is going to target a younger audience. It seems though, that this complete redesign is taking much longer than expected.
Delays aren't uncommon in video games and they've become more and more common. Some delays are good, as it allows developers extra time to fine tune and perfect their products, just look at how good Red Dead Redemption 2 turned out.
However, the lack of information and smoke and mirrors act by EA will not inspire anybody's confidence. Clearly, something isn't going to plan, ever if the publisher won't admit it publicly.
When EA leaker Tom Henderson is "concerned" about NFS 2022, you know there's something seriously wrong.
Will NFS launch in 2022?
The countdown is on, but we don't have an end-date to aim for. There is so much about the next game that we still don't know. Where will it be set? What consoles will it release on? What will the gameplay be like? What cars will be available? Will the cops play a big role?
Small leaks such as the game's alleged logo are trickling through but EA have constructed a dam to wall off almost all information regarding their upcoming arcade racer.
Even if everything we've seen and read is true, almost all of it is superficial. What fans really care about is how NFS 2022 plays and the overall experience of the game.
On the positives though, if there is an issue with NFS, at least Criterion are trying to fix it rather than releasing the game half-baked, which has sadly happened with some major games.