EA has unveiled the latest title in their long running Need for Speed franchise, entitled Need for Speed Rivals. The game is being co-developed by EA’s new Ghost studio and Criterion Games, the studio behind the Burnout series as well as the recent Need for Speed: Most Wanted.
The next-gen version of Rivals is powered by EA’s Frostbite 3 engine, and EA expects that the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC versions of the game will all look equally pretty. There’s also a version of the game planned for all current-gen consoles, which will also run on a modified version of Frostbite 3.
According to EA, Rivals will feature a seamless blend of single player and multiplayer: Players can choose to play as either racers or cops as they travel around Rivals’ open world environment, and as you play the game’s campaign and complete your own objectives, your game will be seamlessly linked with other players online, meaning your competition (and the police trying to take all of you down,) will all be controlled by real people. The game will automatically match you up with any other players online who are playing the same mission or who are within the same area of the game’s world. EA says the next-gen versions of the game will feature better graphics and will support a higher number of online players per match-up.
Need for Speed Rivals is planned to come out for the current-gen consoles this November. EA’s press release originally mentioned that the next-gen versions were also planned to hit this November as well (hinting that the next-gen consoles would also be released around the same time or possibly even before then,) but apparently that was info that EA wasn’t supposed to release yet, so they’ve since removed that tidbit from their statement.
