8 Things We Know So Far About The Next Need For Speed Game
Despite announcing in a recent blog post that a new Need for Speed game is hitting our consoles this year, EA and Ghost Games have largely been keeping things quiet. However, after picking apart the announcement and related materials while adding in a dash of speculation and some rumours, here’s what we’ve been able to glean thus far:
1. It’s coming this year
The main point of the announcement was to confirm that the next instalment of the Need for Speed series will arrive by the end of 2017. Much more in the way of official information will be revealed at EA Play in June. So, there’s not long to wait…
2. Offline play
The two most recent NFS titles, 2013’s Rivals and 2015’s Need for Speed reboot, were always-online. You had to have an internet connection to play and that meant there wasn’t the chance to pause, in case you needed to quickly pop away from the screen or grab some snacks.
This was a major drawback and sparked criticism from players, but the next game will include some kind of offline mode. EA and Ghost Games say you’ll be able to “play through a single player experience” of some kind – a bit vague, but good news nonetheless.
That doesn’t give much away and hints that it could be separate from the main online mode, but some form of offline feature or gameplay will be a welcome addition to NFS following on from the frustrations of past games.
3. Customisation a key focus
One of the most important and enjoyable aspects of Need for Speed is car customisation and the recent announcement stated it “will play as strong a role as ever” in the next game and beyond. So, that’s definitely a cool thing to hear so early in the process. How much of a focus and the scope it will include, we don’t know. But hopefully we’ll find out more at EA Play.
4. Wider open world
The last two NFS titles were open world but this side of the franchise has always been lacking compared to rival racing series such as Forza Horizon. But, Ghost Games is promising a more beautiful and larger open world for this game. We’re excited to see just what this includes and how it compares to other games - we’d imagine it’s a big step compared to past NFS games if they are hyping it up already.
5. Racing in daylight
The Need for Speed reboot only featured night-time racing, which some felt was a little frustrating. It’s a minor detail, sure, but surely, it’d be better to have a mix of night and day, just like in real life? Well, a return to daylight racing is hinted in the teaser photo used in the NFS announcement.
6. Dirt driving?
Another interesting little snippet from the new NFS game confirmation is the mention of racing on “tarmac, and dirt, to your heart’s content”. This indicates some dirt road and off-road racing and driving is coming to the game, something that NFS hasn’t really focused on much. The fact they’re mentioning it in an announcement suggests some off-road elements and cars may be coming to the game.
7. Police chases
Cops will return to NFS for the next game, so you can get caught up in high-speed police chases and fine-tune your escaping skills. It definitely sounds like the new NFS release will be more well-rounded compared to previous games and have a lot more going on.
8. Name rumours
The last NFS title was simply named Need for Speed, as it was a reboot, but it’s rumoured that the new title that’s just been announced could be called Need for Speed: Arena. This was trademarked by EA last year.
Are you hyped for the new Need for Speed game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Comments
Sounds amazing, not sure about that police thing tho
8 x same $hit lmao 😂
Meanwhile I am still playing Need for Speed Carbon on my original Wii
9: 350z is coming?
Still no offline multiplayer. Boooooo
Id rather have a remake on nfsu2
give us more cars please
More cars with more variety
I don’t think it was a perfect game by any means…
I think the reboot was just an experiment to let the community help build the game and this is shown through the addition of Manual Trans in 2015 so NFS 2017 will be what the community would like to see.
Sure Ghost will never be quite as good as Black Box but they do try and we must give them a chance…
This is what I commented on a video talking about the new Need for Speed game when everybody was asking for a Underground 3 game.
I’m copy-pasting the comment here as well to share my thoughts.
The only think i’d like to add is that I don’t believe they will have actual dirt driving such as “the Crew”. I just think that parts of the map will have short dirt paths but not actual dirt tracks. Almost all NfS games (underground, most wanted, 2015 and much more) had paths that were 1000 feet long with dirt to be able to cut corners and such. That’s what I think they mean, NfS is going back to its Underground street-racer roots and since it didn’t have dirt tracks back then I don’t think it will again.
I played all the need for speed games that were availiable on PC and Consoles from Need for Speed 2 in 1997 apart from Hot pursuit (2010) and The Run, and the need for speed franchise has basically become a remake for Underground 1 on it’s own. Up until the last game before Underground 1(NfS Hot Pursuit 2, 2002) it was a racing game with no customisations, no free roam nor anything like that. Then Underground came and litteraly every game since then apart maybe Pro Street, Shift 1 & 2 (because they were track focused) has been just that, “illegal” street racing game with tuning options.
Do you know what’s the only 2 changes since Underground?
In the days of Underground 1 & 2 all the cars were more or less equal. You could win a drag race with a Peugeot 106 against an R34 GTR and a Supra with enough perfect shifts. Most wanted came along and even though it kept that equality (I finished the game on a V6 Clio) it added supercars that indirectly forced you to get one. Yeah even a Cayman and a Supra could go against an SLR when AIs were driving, but if you got into the SLR, the Carrera GT or the Murcielago you’d realise how much faster those 3 were against all the other cars.
Then Carbon came along and litteraly threw the Tier of cars in your face. What’s wrong with an old Camaro (tier 1) going against a Cuda (tier 3)? Nope, the game forces me to change cars on each area.
The Tiers on Carbon made car completely unrealistic. I’m not saying an Alfa Brera will ever be able to keep up with an SLR, but the tier made some cars completely unmatched even though they shouldn’t be. The 240SX stock is nowhere close as good as the rest of the cars in its Tier (you could get it from a challenge) for example, yet it was a Tier 2, higher tier than the Mercedes CLK 500 and the RX8 and at the same one with Lotuses and Aston Martins.
In Undercover then they started adding hypercars like Bugattis and that’s where the franchise took downward path and hasn’t made a very good game in years.
I said all this because I wanted to point out what went wrong in my opinion with the franchise. In underground having a car was special, you could only have a couple of them, all of them were about equal, but there was the main menu to let you try them all. In the newer games, however, you are forced to go fancy european hypercars instead of tuners and musle cars. How many street racers have you seen in Zondas Ferraris and Aventadors? NfS has become a “rich boys racing cars” game while it used to be a tuner game where you’d get a cheap car and build it up to 700+ horses. You don’t need an Underground 3 (most wanted and carbon were both good followups to Underground 2 and could easily have the title Underground 3), you just need a Need for Speed game where it makes you bond with the cars you have just like Underground and Most Wanted did.
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