It’s the end of the road for Need For Speed Unbound’s game updates. Volume 9 is the final season where the 2022 racing game was supported as a live service with regular game updates.
There are no more content updates planned.
Tha Kaizen team at developer Criterion has now signed off in this blog post, as they’ll be working on the next Battlefield game which just recently teased.
Need For Speed Unbound received an extra year of live service support which added new cars (including the return of previously-missing manufacturer Audi), throwbacks to past Need For Speed games (Underground, Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted (2005)) and more Season Passes. Some of the new cars, which includes visual parts customisation, are locked behind a paywall, but the new modes, which includes a PVPVE extraction mode of all things, are free.
In short, the live service run had iffy monetisation, but absolutely pushing the limits (as if it’s… unbound) when it comes to creative ideas.
The whole team at Criterion is joining forces with DICE, Ripple Effect and Motive as part of Battlefield Studios to work on the next Battlefield. Which likely means the future of Need For Speed is on hold for now. Criterion is now the designated caretaker of the long-running series of racing games after Ghost Games was unceremoniously disbanded, ending their mediocre run of games on a high with NFS Heat.
During Ghost Games’ time on the wheels of NFS, Criterion, the dev studio that made the long-dormant Burnout series of racing games, became a support studio co-developing various entries of Battlefield. So seeing Criterion working on Battlefield again isn’t a surprise, but it does mean Need For Speed will be getting low for a while.
Need For Speed Unbound is available on PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, EA App) Xbox Series X|S.