Need for Speed Unbound is hitting the brakes, but the engine is staying on for the racing game series.
Two years after its release, Need for Speed Unbound is no longer receiving any further support. After nine content updates, it is now over, as publisher EA announced in a blog post For the time being, development studio Criterion has to help out elsewhere.
What is the studio working on now?
The entire Criterion team is now working with Dice to get the next Battlefield, which is scheduled for release later this year, up to scratch. A large part of the studio has been working on the shooter since September 2023, with only a small team still working on further updates to Unbound – so far.
Incidentally, this is not the first time: When Battlefield 2042 was about to be released, Criterion also helped out. That’s why Need for Speed Unbound had to be postponed, as the shooter had higher priority.
Need for Speed is coming back
In an interview with IGN, Respawn’s head and Group GM for EA Studios Organization Vince Zampella made it clear that Unbound is not the last Need for Speed:
With a better understanding of what our players want from a Need for Speed experience, we plan to bring the franchise back in a new and interesting way.
Of course, it is still completely open when a new Need for Speed will be released and in which direction it will go. However, it will most likely take a few more years, as work on the next installment has not even started and the team is now working on Battlefield 7.
Incidentally, the last update for Unbound had a small premiere in the racing game series: for the first time, motorcycles were playable in a Need for Speed game. The positive feedback suggests that this won’t be the last time we’ll be on two wheels – although that’s pure speculation, of course.
