EA Puts Criterion’s Need for Speed Team on Battlefield, Confirms No More Content Coming to NFS Unbound

EA has confirmed the end of support for Need for Speed Unbound just over two years after the game came out as its developer goes all in on the next Battlefield.

UK studio Criterion Games, best-known for the much-loved Burnout series, developed Need for Speed Unbound for launch in December 2022 and recently rounded out its second year of updates. IGN has confirmed with EA that this marks the end of new content for Need for Speed Unbound, and the Need for Speed team within Criterion is now, alongside the rest of the studio, working on Battlefield. The game will remain on-sale so players can continue to play the base game and all nine content drops.

“The Need for Speed team at Criterion are joining their colleagues working on Battlefield,” a statement from Vince Zampella, Head of Respawn & Group GM for EA Studios Organization, sent to IGN reads.

“As a company, it was important to us to take the last year to listen to our Need for Speed community and use their feedback to create content for Unbound. With an increased understanding of what our players want in a Need for Speed experience, we plan to bring the franchise back in new and interesting ways.”

That’s a rather vague hint that Need for Speed will return at some point, but it’s unclear when and in what form.

It’s a different situation for Dead Space remake and Star Wars: Squadrons developer Motive, which EA told IGN is still working on both the future of Battlefield as well as an Iron Man game. DICE and Ripple Effect, the other two studios that form part of what EA calls Battlefield Studios, are only working on Battlefield.

The Need for Speed news comes as EA starts to reveal more about the new Battlefield, including a first official look at pre-alpha gameplay and the establishment of Battlefield Labs, where players can test the game ahead of launch. There’s no word yet on when the game will be released.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.