Criterion Appears To Be Working On The Next Need for Speed Again, Hiring Campaign and Live Service Designers
It appears Criterion Games are back to work developing the next Need for Speed game again, with a slew of new job roles opened up at the Guildford based studio for key roles on the next Need for Speed.
John Stanley, Senior Designer at Criterion, posted on Twitter earlier this week to announce that the team are hiring, with one role in particular being a ‘Campaign Designer’ on the next Need for Speed.
The job description mentions working with the Campaign Design Director to ‘establish, and work with their teams to achieve, the campaign gameplay player experience - the core single player journey within NFS’. The role also discusses gameplay, progression and narrative, with ‘emotive gameplay and connections to the characters within our world.’
Checking the EA Careers portal for NFS related job openings, you can find three other job roles Criterion are looking for, which give insight into the direction Criterion are taking with this new game. On the site are roles for a ‘COPs Gameplay Designer’ and an ‘Events Gameplay Designer’, however the most notable on the list, is a Lead Game Designer role for ‘Social and Live Service’.
Both the Cops Design Lead and Event Gameplay Designer roles discuss the cops experience and single player gameplay activities such as races, drift events, activities and collectables as ‘core Need for Speed experiences’ and are essential to the design teams for franchise.
While the Social and Live Service role doesn’t mention much, it’s reassuring to hear that Criterion has plans to support their next game for the long term - something the past few Need for Speed entries have struggled to do in a meaningful way.
Earlier this year, it was announced that Criterion will be halting development on their next Need for Speed game (originally slated to launch Holiday 2021) to assist DICE and Ripple Effect Studios in developing Battlefield 2042, which will launch on October 17th 2021.
Currently the next Need for Speed game is expected to launch before April 2023, however will most likely launch November 2022 based on previous NFS title release schedules.
Be sure to stay tuned for all the latest Need for Speed news, rumours and announcements as we get closer and closer to 2022.
[Source: Twitter, Electronic Arts]