Need For Speed franchise quietly 'shelved' by EA

It may be the end of the road for the beloved Need For Speed franchise.

It can be difficult to accept the fall of a once mighty IP; Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) and Need For Speed: Underground 2 (2004) continue to remain firm fan-favourite racing titles to this day.

Then again, you could argue that means that the franchise peaked in the mid 00s, which isn’t too far wrong.

The latest release, Need For Speed Unbound (2022), was fine at best.

It secured a generally favourable score of 77 on Metacritic, but its user rating of just 5.9 proves that the game failed to hit the mark.

Since then, there's been total radio silence on the franchise, and it’s looking as if that could continue indefinitely.

If you’re not familiar with Speedhunters, it’s essentially a Need For Speed fan site officially backed by EA.

However, as reported by VGC, EA has now pulled its funding with Speedhunters contributor Matthew Everingham claiming that the franchise has been shelved.

"Speedhunters is on ice. EA shelved Need For Speed, and that means no more funding for the site,” he began.

“Grateful for everything — the trips, the stories, the lifelong mates. I'm still shooting, just shifting gears into more video."

While I’d urge you to take Everingham’s claim that the franchise “has been shelved” with a small pinch of salt, you have to admit, it doesn’t look good for the once racing titan.

The belief is that developer Criterion is now full speed ahead (no pun intended) on the Battlefield franchise, with the studio supposedly making the single-player campaign of the next Battlefield release.

That too is a franchise that’s majorly on the rocks.

It looks to me like EA is opting to pool its resources to restore and protect one dying ember rather than spread itself too thin across too many franchises and projects.

The next Battlefield, which remains untitled, is expected to arrive anytime between now and 31 March 2026.

As for the next Need For Speed, well, it’s incredibly sad if it arrived in 2022 and we didn’t even know it.

Come on EA, you know an Underground 2 remake would sell like hot cakes.