EA skips a year with the Need for Speed Franchise

Starting 1997 Electronic Arts has released a Need for speed game every year, with some years getting multiple releases.  The list stands as follows:

1. 1997 – Need for Speed II
2. 1998 – Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit
3. 1999 – Need for speed High Stakes  / Road Challenge
4. 2000 – Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed / Porsche 2000
5. 2001 – Need for Speed: Motor City Online
6. 2002 – Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
7. 2003 – Need for Speed:  Underground
8. 2004 – Need for Speed:  Underground 2
9. 2005 – Need for Speed:  Most Wanted
10. 2006 – Need for Speed: Carbon
11. 2007 – Need for Speed: ProStreet
12. 2008 – Need for Speed: Undercover
13. 2009 – Need for Speed: Shift
14. 2009 – Need for Speed: Nitro
15. 2010 – Need for Speed: World
16. 2010 – Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
17. 2011 – Shift 2: Unleashed
18. 2011 – Need for Speed: The Run
19. 2012 – Need for Speed: Most Wanted
20. 2013 – Need for Speed Rivals

And that’s not counting the 2 V-Rally games. Fact is there have been over 20 games in the Need for speed series over the past 17 years.

So it comes as a bit of a shock that Electronic Arts has announced through its CEO Andrew Wilson that there will not be a new NFS game in the 2015 fiscal year. The reason behind this decision is to allow Ghost Games – the development team behind 2013’s Rivals – to work on the new title in the Frostbite 3 engine.

The news comes does come after reports of Ghost Games having significant layoffs earlier this year, just after the release of the aforementioned Rivals. The development of the unannounced Need for Speed game was reportedly put on hold because of the layoffs and because of the required restructuring.