Back in the days of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the Need for Speed franchise had just come off one its best entries to date and was sitting firmly at the top of its game as a leader in the industry. Just like Call of Duty, FIFA, and the battle royale genre, there was a time when racing games were guaranteed hits with games like Forza, Burnout Paradise, Project Gotham Racing, and Midnight Club all proving incredibly popular. And for a while, Need for Speed was the king of them all because for every Need for Speed: The Run, there was a Need for Speed: Most Wanted or a Need for Speed: Shift.
Unfortunately, great things don’t last forever and the entire racing game genre started to take a back seat after the release of PS4 and Xbox One and the rise of online multiplayer games. What few Need for Speed games have released this generation have failed to adapt to the new market and left fans completely underwhelmed. With the announcement that EA is releasing Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered early next month, not the best entry in the series but a strong one nonetheless, could this be the first step in the right direction toward fixing years of damage to one of gaming’s most beloved franchises?
Making its debut on in 1994 with the release of The Need for Speed, the series began as a realistic driving simulator before quickly changing course with 1998’s Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit, the first entry in the series to adopt more arcade-style gameplay and introduce police as enemy AI or optional playable characters; two decisions that shaped and define the franchise as it is today. By the end of the PS2 and original Xbox’s lifecycle, Need for Speed had become a household name, releasing multiple entries back to back that are widely considered to be the best games in the franchise to this day: Need for Speed: Underground in 2003, Need for Speed: Underground 2 in 2004, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted in 2005.
After the one-two punch that was Underground 2 and Most Wanted, 2006’s Need for Speed: Carbon couldn’t meet the high bar that fans had come to expect and from there, EA’s annualized release schedule began to wear on the franchise as a whole. Racing games were still wildly successful and Need for Speed was no exception, however, sales were still declining and the perception of the series had changed. It seemed like Need for Speed: Shift and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit quality games were too infrequent, particularly when both of those games came from different developers, with Slightly Mad Studios and eventually Criterion Games taking the reigns from the long-time series developer, EA Black Box.
Toward the end of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 generation, Microsoft and new developer Playground Games released Forza Horizon, a spin-off of the incredibly popular Forza Motorsport series with a focus on casual street racing and more arcade-style gameplay rather than being a realistic driving simulator. The original game released to critical acclaim in 2012, as did all three of Forza Horizon‘s sequels.
With less room in the market and EA taking its first annual hiatus, only to come back with the critically panned Need for Speed (2015) reboot, the Forza Horizon games began to dominate the market, so much so that both Forza Horizon 3 and Forza Horizon 4 are considered to be some of the best racing games available, even outshining recent Forza Motorsport games. Obviously, Forza is an Xbox exclusive franchise, whereas Need for Speed is multiplatform, and it’s not the only well-received racing game to come out in recent years; look no further than Project Cars 2, Dirt Rally 2.0, F1 2019, and even Burnout Paradise Remastered. What it means is that Forza Horizon didn’t kill Need for Speed, it’s just one great example of how a juggernaut series climbed the ranks in a time when the previous leader was already years into a steep decline.
The announcement that EA would be remastering Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit of all games in the franchise was a surprising one but it could easily be the first step in the right direction toward fixing fan perception. While not the best entry in the franchise, the 2010 reboot was the first game to be developed by Criterion Games and acted as a strong return to form for the series after games like ProStreet and Undercover left a bad taste in fans’ mouths, currently sitting at an 88/100 for Xbox 360 on Metacritic.
All that EA needs to do is give Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered the love and care it deserves and prove to players why they should still care about Need for Speed. If Hot Pursuit Remastered is successful critically and commercially, that paves the way for EA to remaster (or preferably remake) the most beloved games in the series, Need for Speed: Underground 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted, two games that lapsed players would absolutely return for. Activision found great success returning to some of its older games like Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk, something that EA could learn from as long as it’s willing to put in the work.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered releases on November 6, 2020, for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. A Nintendo Switch version releases on November 13, 2020.
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