True news or fake statement?(Criterion/Future NFS/Next Generation)

[TheRealJony]

Yea, it's sounds true. Doesn't seem like a hoax.

Ghost Games didn't make a single NFS game that is up to par with the NFS games from the golden age.

And it didn't help that NFS Heat (their best NFS they made) sold "kind of expected", according to EA's COO / CFO. (Meaning NFS Heat sold slightly under the 4 million sales target)

With this news update, I'm not expecting any new features (such as PvP) coming to the game anymore.

Any new features coming to NFS Heat will be a surprise for me.

This is just what I think, but I think NFS Heat is done. There may be some last bug fixes for the game before all development support ends for the game, so the majority of Ghost Games devs move over to Criterion Games (and other places) to start development on the next NFS game.

---

@GK3512 wrote:

will this mean NFS will be Renderware/Chameleon engine game again?

---

Judging from past history, EA seems keen on forcing developers to use the Frostbite 3 engine for as much of their games as possible. They want to avoid using other game engines (such as Unreal Engine 4) as much as possible.

But this is just all speculation at this point.

[M4tt_Macabre]

Horrible decision tbh. I got to playtest this, and they actually listened and the final game was brilliant i think, EA just dropped the ball again and didn't push updates fast enough.

EA seem to forget that it's their own doing that has harmed sales. People still treat EA like a bad word over the micro-transactions thing a few years ago even though they have done a lot to negate that, EA access is prob one of the best game pass deals there is IMO.

Ghost have worked so so hard trying to revive the series, they finally nail it and EA pulls the plug... i dunno if this is partly due to Brexit... The studio is mainly based in Gothenburg.

[GK3512]

@GK3512 What this means is Ghost UK(based in fake-Criterion) will be the only sort of Ghost studio working on future NFS,Ghost Romania and Ghost Gothenburg are steered to other project.

[Icarium81]

@GDUBZ1You're delusional if you think they're going to put any real effort into this pile of sht now.
They couldn't nail it for the release and now they gave zero incentive to do very well on any updates.

[GK3512]

@Icarium81 I agree Heat wont get much attention from newCriterion.EA accept Heat flopped,so another dev takes over from junky Ghost

[GK3512]

@GK3512 Since this new Criterion didn't make any old games like Burnout series or HP2010/MW2012.What this new dev will do is likely close to Ghost,put out some failing games and killed after continous failures.So sad we cant get real Criterion cores back

[Jabberwocky79]

Reading between the lines, it sounds like EA couldn't get enough talent to Sweden in order to grow Ghost into a large enough studio to be able to give adequate post-launch support by way of patches and DLC updates. I don't remember Payback having as many "brick wall" bugs as Heat - the ones where people can't even get past the main menu, let-alone play the game. That's kind of a big deal. The forums have been burned to the ground with bug reports and angry customers due to some serious quality control flaws. EA may be looking at the current state, and Ghost is telling them 'hey, we can't fix this because we don't have the resources.'

So now EA is trying to figure out how to move forward... it sounds as though they will be transplanting much of the talent that makes up Ghost studios back into Criterion, so NFS may still be able to retain the identity that Ghost has refined.

[GK3512]

@Jabberwocky79 All games from Ghost arent anything close to being just-so-so.Continous failures lead to the demise of Ghost games.However because this Criterion is not the Criterion made Burnout/NFS back in the days anymore.I dont have much faith and hope in fake-Criterion games of next gen.At least fake-Criterion will keep fixing this buggy as hell game.Fake-Criterion is now the only main-platform racing games dev of EA.If they fails again in next gen,NFS may really will be killed once and for all.

[4Northstar]

@TheRealJony  I agree with your post. This looks like a rerun of NFS Rivals when EA yanked Criterion out and let Ghost finish it, though NFS Rivals was in a lot better shape than this buggy mess. We might see another patch that will fix the worst of it, but I don't see any features being added to it anymore either. I do think they will release some DLC's with additional cars to milk the last bit of money out of this, but that should be about it. At least EA realized they screwed up and that Ghost sucked at NFS. Hopefully there is some talent left at Criterion after EA gutted them. We'll see. 

[GK3512]

Speak of next gen.PS1 started with NFSII and HP1 was the first real successful game of NFS.PS2 started with HP2 which led to BB took over from EA Canada.PS3 started with Shift and that caused fans left the series until real-Criterion brought back HP2010 next year.PS4 started with real-Criterion+Ghost Rivals which became the most polished Ghost project ever.So it's clear that a good start in PS5/XSX generation is a HP style game.Which is totally different from what Ghost treated as the core of NFS.However I doubt fake-Criterion can do a good racing game alone.They only did small part in SWBF and BF before,and never a single racing games.I dont have much faith in them or next gen NFS