Electronic Arts is unifying Codemasters Cheshire and Criterion Games to work on the Need for Speed franchise.
Criterion will continue to work out of Guildford and the Codemasters team will stay in Cheshire.
“We can confirm Criterion Games and the development team at Codemasters Cheshire are officially coming together to create the future of Need for Speed, forming one Criterion studio with two location hubs,” reads a tweet from Codemasters.
“This integration builds off the close partnership the two studios have developed over the past few months. Sharing common values and similar cultures, we strongly believe unifying the huge wealth of expertise across both teams will help us to deliver the best racing experiences we can for our players.”
In 2020, the Need for Speed franchise was handed back to Criterion with Need for Speed Heat studio Ghost Games evolving into an “engineering hub.” Many of Ghost Games’ employees were moved over to Criterion.
The last game in the Need for Speed franchise fully developed by Criterion was Need for Speed: Most Wanted, although it did co-develop Need for Speed Rivals with Ghost Games which released the last four titles in the series.
Since the release of Criterion’s last entry in the series, it has worked with DICE on Star Wars Battlefront 2, Battlefield 5, and Battlefield 6.
EA aquired Codemasters last year for $1.2 billion, after an initial offer was made back in December 2020. Outbidding Take-Two, the acquisition by EA was finalized in February 2021.
As far Need for Speed is concerned, the next game in the series was announced as in development back in 2020 during EA Play Live. A tease of the game showed two nice looking cars with nothing else was revealed about the title.
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