Obviously, the game had more than a few major strengths that made it the bombastic, memorable experience that it was, but there were some areas in particular that elevated it to the heights that it did reach. One of those was the game’s sheer, incredible sense of speed. You’d think that nailing that particular aspect is something that every single racing game would know how to do, but sadly, that’s not always the case. 2005’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted, however, nailed it to absolute perfection. Every single race, every single police chase, even the aimless driving around in the open world went hand in hand with a sense of speed that made every second of the game feel like an absolute thrill ride.

Most Wanted emphasized that aspect of the experience in several ways. Take the Nitrous mechanic, for instance. That is, of course, a staple for most (if not all) racers in today’s day and age, but back in 2005, Most Wanted was only the second Need for Speed game to feature that mechanic, after it was introduced in the original Underground. And one of the ways it made it significantly more crucial to the moment to moment gameplay loop was by having your Nitrous meter refill by itself constantly. The game always encouraged players to let the boost rip, allowing you to tear through the open world city’s streets to your heart’s content. Then there was the Speedbreaker mechanic, which was, in essence, Most Wanted’s take on bullet time, allowing you to slow down time to maneuver around obstacles and other vehicles and even temporarily be able to drift. Using it almost never got old.

Dangerous, speedy driving was encouraged in plenty of other ways as well. Some events, of course, were particularly designed around that, such as Speedtrap races, which challenged players to race through a series of checkpoints at the highest possible speeds and hit each of them before any of your competitors, with your speed at each checkpoint being added up at the finish line to see which racer accumulated the highest total. And then, of course, there was the game’s headlining feature, which defined the very core of what made Most Wanted what it was- the police chases.

Police chases have always been integral to Need for Speed’s identity for pretty much as long as the series has been around, but until 2005 (and perhaps even to this day), no game in the franchise had emphasized them as heavily as Most Wanted did. Completing racing events and Milestone challenges to rise through the ranks of the city’s underground racing scene and defeat each of its Blacklist racers was your main objective in the game, but what truly formed the heart and soul of the entire game was the police chases.

From speeding to crashing into traffic to committing a number of other driving offences, there was no shortage of actions in Need for Speed: Most Wanted that attracted the attention of the law, and once the cops began pursuing you, that’s when things really went down. What really made the police pursuits so special in the game was their sense of escalation- starting out with chases that were relatively low stakes and did not present that much of a challenge, as you racked up the offences and saw your heat level constantly rising, the way the chases escalated was extremely impressive, with the cops constantly ramping up their efforts to bring you down, from faster and sturdier vehicles to things such as spike traps, road blocks, and even helicopters. There was nothing more thrilling than tearing through the city’s streets with an army of police vehicles all trying to bring you to a dead stop, and the swelling satisfaction you got from successfully escaping a chase by destroying cop cars by smacking into them and watching them crumble or crashing through the pillars of a building to bring it down behind you and crumble on top of the pursuing cops was, in a word, immense.

When it came to the races themselves, Most Wanted benefited from a number of other things, prime among them being the variety on offer. From the aforementioned Speedtraps to Tollbooth races, from drag races to sprints, from Milestone challenges to the police pursuits, and, of course, the set piece events known as Blacklist racers, Most Wanted exhibited an impressive variety of racing events. Beyond all that, simply driving around in the open world itself was also an absolute blast, not only thanks to the aforementioned sense of speed and the incredible executing of the game’s fundamental driving mechanics, but also because there was almost always something fun to do in the open world- like crashing through billboards or performing stunt jumps, all of which is pretty cookie cutter in today’s day and age, but set the standards for the genre back when the game first launched.

Then there was the whole garage building aspect of the experience, which has always been an integral part of Need for Speed games. Most Wanted left a little something to be desired where things such as damage mechanics and cosmetic customization options are concerned, but when it came to building up your own sizeable roster of vehicles and upgrading them in a variety of ways to make them faster and stronger, the game was teeming with options. It also helped a great deal that by 2005’s standards, Most Wanted looked absolutely incredible. Not only did its distinct sepia tone and art design give it a very unique look that’s hard to find in racers even to this day, from a pure technical standpoint, the game was an impressive accomplishment.

Time has certainly been kind to Need for Speed: Most Wanted. That does not, of course, mean that the game was not appreciated back when it first came out – it instantly became a fan favourite, enjoyed solid critical reception, and remains one of the highest selling Need for Speed games to this day – but as time has gone on, more and more people have looked back at the 2005 game and recognized its brilliance that much more, to the point where, for many, it ranks as probably one of the series’ best outings ever, and maybe even one of the best racing games ever made. Criterion tried its hand at the Most Wanted name with a 2012 reboot of the same name, and the developer brought its own unique flair and panache to the experience in a number of ways, and while that was a solid game in its own right, it’s fair to say that it couldn’t touch the heights that its predecessor did. And when not even the racing masterminds at Criterion can outdo a game, you know that it was truly special. We can only hope that Need for Speed will accomplish something similar at some point in the future.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

According to Henderson in a new tweet, Codemasters Cheshire is becoming a support studio for the next Need for Speed. The studio is perhaps best known for being the success to Evolution Studios, which developed Motorstorm and Driveclub before eventually releasing Onrush under Deep Silver. It would subsequently develop DiRT 5. While we advise taking this rumor with a grain of salt, Henderson has been fairly on the money with leaks and reports.

This doesn’t exactly narrow down the scope or level of realism that the next Need for Speed will have. Time will ultimately tell how it pans out and whether the studio serving as support was always the plan or a last-minute decision to meet deadlines. Stay tuned for an official announcement sometime in the coming months.

SCOOP – Codemasters Cheshire is to become a support studio for the next Need For Speed title. pic.twitter.com/yCFtLr2aji

— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) February 10, 2022

EA also took to Twitter to recognize the addition to the library, although it quickly followed up with a reminder that Skate 2‘s online servers will still be shutting down on December 10th, 2021. Players will no longer be able to access the game’s online components pretty soon, which significantly sours what was intended to be a moment of celebration.

Xbox also shadow dropped the free-to-play multiplayer component of Halo Infinite to mark the brand’s 20th anniversary, three weeks ahead of the game’s December 8th launch. The game quickly surpassed Forza Horizon 5‘s peak concurrent users on Steam by a significant margin, making it the biggest Xbox Game Studios launch on the platform in just a matter of hours.

Additionally, we’re providing a heads up that on December 10, 2021, we will be turning off the Skate 2 online servers for PlayStation and Xbox. It’s not an easy decision and not something we take lightly. For more info check: https://t.co/98V9WH3W8C

— skate. (@skate) November 15, 2021

You could argue that in the pursuit of market dominance, Need for Speed had lost its identity a bit, many have, but the truth is no series lasts as long as Need for Speed has without undergoing major shifts here and there. One of the largest shifts of all for the series was going from their developer of many years, Criterion Games, who oversaw development of several of some of the most highly regarded titles in the series, to Ghost Games, who had really nothing of note beforehand, and was more-or-less just a Frankenstein dev team put together by EA with folks from DICE, Black Box, and other studios.

After collaborating with Criterion on Need for Speed Rivals back in 2013, Ghost Games would go on to carry the mantle on their own and they would make many of the less-than-stellar Need for Speed games of the last several years, like 2017’s reboot, Need for Speed Payback, and eventually, Need for Speed Heat, which actually turned out pretty good. Despite this, it does seem that, after years of perhaps being in less than ideal hands, the Need for Speed torch is being handed back to Criterion. For anybody who was in love with the older games in the series, or any of Criterion’s other masterpieces, this is outstanding news. Here’s why:

Firstly, let’s just talk about Criterion for a second. This is a developer who has certainly had their ups and downs, but let’s be real here; any studio that has been able to bring the unmitigated classics like the Burnout series into the world, deserves your attention. The original few Burnout games are still regarded as some of the finest examples of arcade racing at its best, and odds are, with Criterion perhaps back behind the wheel of the Need for Speed series, we’ll see some of that flair and creativity return to a series that certainly needs it at this point. That by no means indicates that Need for Speed needs to be as wacky and crazy as Burnout, and I don’t think we should expect that necessarily, but surely taking the series a few notches back in that direction could be just what the doctor ordered.

It’s arguable that the praise that NFS Heat has gotten is largely a result of that game taking a couple baby steps towards that mentality, and setting itself further apart from games like Forza and Gran Turismo, who unquestionably have that ultra-realistic driving game market cornered at this point. There’s certainly no point in trying to compete with that, and it looks like Heat was Ghost Games’ best attempt to reflect that truth. However, nobody knows that truth more than Criterion. The Burnout games, as well as the few Need for Speed games they did work on were all very much in their own space between the super arcade-y and the super realistic, and that was a good space for the NFS games to plant their flag in.

On top of the sheer acumen of the team as it currently exists, more good news about this development has come out. We now know that, according to EA, many of the lead designers and engineers that have worked on the last few Need for Speed games will be transferring to Criterion to help with future titles, while Criterion remains in the leadership position. This is a fantastic decision on EA’s part. While the last few NFS games might have failed to live up to many gamers’ standards in some ways, they have all looked and sounded great.

So many of those who were responsible for actual asset building, sound engineering, and other artistic elements will be going over to help and be led by Criterion, who could use the extra hands at this point as they have been rather small over the last several years. In any case, if this transfer of talent goes well, Criterion could be set up perfectly to deliver one of the best Need for Speed games of all time with the design talent of some of the best folks from Ghost, and the creative minds that brought us Burnout and Black leading the project and calling the shots.

On top of just having a great team and a great arrangement of circumstances in Criterion’s favor at the moment, there’s another, less measurable aspect about this that could be cause for excitement here; pent up creative energy. What exactly has Criterion been working on for the last few years? Have they been up to anything interesting since EA took Need for Speed away from them, downsized them, and left them behind? Well, not really. After wrapping up their small part of helping with Need for Speed Rivals, Criterion went straight into helping DICE with Star Wars Battlefront by working on a standalone X-Wing VR mission for the game. This was by no means a waste of time, as the VR mission was pretty cool, but indeed a far cry from what the studio had been working on just a year or so before.

After that, more work on Battlefront 2, which was mostly still lead by DICE, so odds are that wasn’t particularly fulfilling to their creative minds. After that, Criterion was given yet another odd job of creating the Firestorm battle royale mode for Battlefield 5. Despite the fact that Battlefield 5 was getting mixed reviews and a fair amount of backlash from poor marketing decisions, Firestorm actually turned out pretty well and was able to grasp the chaos of battlefield games and transfer it nicely into the battle royale format for the most part. Even still, the completion of this mode would mark nearly a decade of not really having any major role in the creation or completion of their own games. Let alone a racing game or any sort of unique IP.

The talented minds left at Criterion had only been allowed to operate in the exceedingly small box of small tasks for other games that were already made by other teams, and that is not the natural function of creativity. Now, with Need for Speed finally being in the capable hands of Criterion, and that team having more autonomy and creative responsibility than they have had in many years, it’s fair to suspect an explosion of creative ideas and fresh takes are on the way for the series. Who knows, maybe the series will get the exact breath of fresh air that it has needed for so long.

Every day between now and 27th July, a new reveal or free item will be given away to fans of the free-to-play, racing MMO.

All existing players will receive the new 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, as well as double XP throughout the week. Not only that, but the all new Free Cam feature has finally arrived, allowing racers to capture in-game screenshots of their cars in action.

Throughout the week players will have a chance to log in and snag themselves more free free items including: customized license plates, neons, vinyls and even Need for Speed World in-game currency, SpeedBoost.

For more information about Need For Speed World visit the website.