Need for Speed: Rivals Is Headed to Next-Gen Consoles

Is Ghost a development studio? Never heard of them. Will be interested to see what this actually is.

Well we got exotics, and police chases...lets see more!

They're newly formed just to make NFS games. Seems promising now that I've seen a Criterion logo on there as well.

Porsche is confirmed to be in Forza 5 if NFS has Ferrari, good to know!

Enough Need for Speed, bring back Burnout!

And EA Black Box has been killed (or long dead).

Look at all that stuff on the camera; this is indeed the Frostbite engine.

It reads like they are trying to capture Most Wanted (2005) with Rivals. I hope they do well.

I do love that logo treatment.

Ferrari is back with Need for Speed. Finally.

According to the GameInformer preview, it will be pretty much the next iteration of Criterion's take on Hot Pursuit, which suits me well, because that's my favorite racing game of recent vintage.

Info:

Rivals is being made by Ghost Games, a new studio in Sweden staffed by former developers from DICE. Ghost Games executive producer Marcus Nilsson worked on the Shift franchise and built Shift 2: Unleashed with co-workers. Criterion director Craig Sullivan is part of that team now and Nilsson calls Rivals a co-operative effort between Ghost and Criterion.

I hope this still means that Criterion can work on their own game (Burnout!). Or at the very least that "non-racing game" they wanted to make.

This game doesn't have dogs. I'M OUT!

So many gens, so many gens

Well, at least there's pretty much no way I could dislike it more than Most Wanted 2012.

RIP Black Box

Black Box in a pine box.

Did they put the cars in mocap suits like Infinity Ward did with that dog?

Nobody brought "sexy" back, as hardcore as Matt Sullivan (?) from Evolution Studios, pimpin' DRIVE CLUB like it's the hottest ho in the barn? His ignite talk during the PS4 reveal was pornographic?! If there ever was a question what people mean by "car-porn", he gave us all the answer?

Yaawn

@buckybit: For a moment I confused Matt Sullivan with the Craig Sullivan from Criterion and then realised Craig would get all excited about the cars crashing instead. Like in the film Crash (the proper Cronenberg one) .

wasn't there a PSP game called rivals, oh no it was need for speed underground: rivals.

I did see Criterion there, but is Ghost mostly making it? Will have to sit back and see how this turns out.

@soulassassin808: That isn't the way that went down as far as I remember. While EA had the license to Porche and Turn 10 had the license to Ferrari. Turn 10 let EA use Ferarri without issue but EA were cock wads and didn't let Turn 10 use Porche until a lot of hassle and a late DLC pack for Forza 4. I may be wrong though as it was quite a while ago.

I loved Hot Pursuit but didn't care for Most Wanted at all. Hopefully this will bring me back on board again.

I think Ghost is probably the primary developer with people Criterion possibly helping them out perhaps with streamlining the process of creating the game and using the Frostbite engine I reckon.

I'm digging the sound of this one. Been waiting for the penny to drop and EA to finally realize that what TDU did is pretty ingenious and makes a good core concept for a Need for Speed game.

Hope it'll be fun to just drive in this NFS. That the tracks and environments aren't all industrial, urban and boring and the handling all snappy and uneventful.

Boy howdy them cars sure was a slidin'!

Have been utterly unable to muster any interest in racing games since Split/Second. I loved that game but it was kind of the shark-jumping moment for arcade racers.

Ghost Games is actually EA Gothenburg renamed, which is good because there are too many EA <City Name> studios already. Also, I'd guess the 'in association with Criterion' is because Hot Pursuit and and Most Wanted were awesome and The Run was...not. I'd guess it's mostly a 'no you morons, don't do that. Ok, better, NOW MAKE IT CRASH AND EXPLODE.'

I can dream, ok?

Also, Black Box isn't technically gone, they're still there up in Vancouver, they just function as a sort of support team for other game teams (they did the driving sequences in Warfighter, for example)

edit: Actually, I was curious about what Black Box is up to these days and I ran into this:

https://www.cs.ualberta.ca/system/files/job_iip/EA.Software%20Engineer_Jawbreaker.pdf

"Jawbreaker, based at the EA Burnaby Campus, Vancouver, is part of the EA Games Label

Action Vertical. Jawbreaker has previously developed games such as Skate and NFS."

Skate and NFS? Sounds like Black Box got a rename.

What is the point of even making a video like this? It showed me absolutely nothing about the game. Might as well put out a press release.

Interesting find there. I hope this means they're busy working on a new Skate game for the next gen consoles.

EA, you evil blood sucking fucks! As if you will be receiving any of my money, especially after your "Defenders of gamers" stunt where you put a stop to online passes, and failed to tell to us its because its done for you now!

PlayStation 4

I would club many a baby seal to see Criterion make Burnout 6. C'mon EA, you know you want to.

From Alex Ward on Twitter:

Criterion staff are helping out with the art and production. But Ghost is the developer. My group #teamZero is not involved.

https://twitter.com/AlexanderJWard/status/337596635636961281

He also said that he was involved with getting it up, and running, but hasn't been involved since last fall.

@radioactivez0r: Because you wouldn't read a press release, but you might want car-porn. So...mission successful.

Would you be happy if we mo-capped a Greyhound Bus?!

You have my attention.

Is the rival Razor Callahan? Because it should be.