Electronic Arts held their earnings call today, and it revealed a plethora of news with regards to the publisher’s numbers and what we can expect to see from them in terms of new games. Amongst the yearly sports games that do very well for the publisher is some news regarding another one of their most popular franchises that skipped a release last year.
Arcade racing fans rejoice, because it looks like a new Need for Speed title is on the horizon, with Electronic Arts’ announcement coming in the next few weeks. The news was highlighted by user shinobi602 on Twitter, who revealed that the information comes straight from the earnings call made earlier today. Check out the tweet below.
New Need for Speed getting revealed in the next few weeks around Gamescom, says EA. ~Via Earnings Call today
— Shinobi602 (@shinobi602) July 30, 2019
(I just want fun handling and lots of customization. I'm curious at least) pic.twitter.com/W230R1uUJV
Interestingly enough, it also says that this new Need for Speed title will be released around Gamescom, which could point to something major. So far, Electronic Arts has not made any plans regarding their appearance at the yearly gaming event, but with a title as big as Need for Speed, anything is possible.
While we don’t really have any news regarding what this next Need for Speed is, and just how many microtransactions there will be in it (it’s something to consider given that it’s EA), I do have some hopes as to what I wish it will have, as I’m quite excited for this iteration.
Please, not another Payback-like title
The last Need for Speed title released was back in 2017, titled Need for Speed Payback. It did not resonate that well with its audiences, receiving a mixed reception. What absolutely killed it for me was the scripted story – it worked really well with older titles like the original Most Wanted, Carbon and the Underground games because of the silent protagonist, but give the protagonist a voice and motivations among other things and it just feels so unnatural and forced. This is not even mentioning the overextension of microtransactions and the barebones customization options, plus a myriad of technical issues.
I hope that EA learns from this and just goes back to their last real success with Criterion Games, which was the Most Wanted remake back in 2012. It featured almost no story, and the main focus is on the driving – plus the cars you can drive are only restricted by your ability to find them in the game world. It’s an excellent racing game that’s only marred by lack of cosmetic customization – which brings me to my next wish.
Take Most Wanted (2012) and just add cosmetic customizations – plus a bigger map
This is essentially the perfect Need for Speed title for me. You don’t need to shoehorn in a half-assed story, boring characters and other useless filler – just give players the ability to race and drive anytime they want on a bigger map with a deeper focus on car customization. I would like the car acquisitions to be like the Most Wanted remake as well, but we’re well past wishing for things like that as EA will simply monetize additional cars instead of just giving them to the player outright.
In any case, it will be interesting to see how Ghost Games – the studio that replaced Criterion in developing mainline Need for Speed games – would go about with this next iteration. Stay tuned for more as news on this develops.
