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EA Confirms Fate of Criterion, Leaving the Need for Speed Franchise on Life Support
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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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I bought Unbound for only $5 and I feel robbed.
Ignoring the political yapping in my ear for the first like 45 minutes about "police and politicians are oppressing street racers" (that literally cause thousands in damages and definitely cause multiple fatalities every race),all of Criterion's NFS games have bad driving models compared to Black Box, which is literally the most important part of a racing game. IMO, the gameplay peaked with Underground 2, and the story was best with Most Wanted. I didn't like MW or Carbons driving model changes from U2, but they are miles better than anything Criterion made. Heck, even NFS The Run feels like a proper NFS game, and that game was BlackBox's worst NFS game.
I wanted to like Unbound, and even liked its art style, but it gave me too many reasons to not like it. Uninstalled in under an hour, couldn't get a refund because I didn't buy it on Steam.
You forgot Undercover, which is understandable. But that game is worse than The Run.
Anything after ProStreet may as well not exist IMO. And I didn't like ProStreet as much as previous entries. Still better than anything by Criterion though. Their racing games were fine as their own thing, BurnOut was a fun series, but they should never have been allowed to touch Need for Speed in the first place.
Thats like having Psygnosis, the Wipeout developer, work on a new Gran Turismo. Or having Treyarch make the next Battlefield. Its going to feel wrong unless the developers are skilled at replicating the previous studios feeling, or they dont have employees that feel the need to touch everything that already worked and was loved.