A racing game with a story that takes place on the city streets monitored by the corrupted cops keen enough to take down your cars and tear them apart to sell their goodies. Do you get this from any other game other than Need For Speed? The unique touch of the narrative and gameplay features that’s a fine mixture of realism and arcade belongs to Need For Speed in the racing videogame category, and well, there is bad news about the franchise, which might end up in its closure.
In a recent update, EA is stopping the online features for Need For Speed: Rivals on October 6 and 7, 2025. That’s just in a few months, which means that you’ll get to play this game “online” for less than half a year from now. The bad news is said, but the good news is that we’ll get to experience the offline mode of this game forever. Also, Rivals won’t be removed from the EA Play service’s catalog and you’ll still be able to enjoy the title on PC and console Xbox Game Pass.
As EA keeps shutting down its old games including the ones from the NFS franchise, it goes without saying that Need For Speed 2015 is probably the next target. Unfortunately for us, that game is online only, meaning that its shutdown will result in everything gone even if you’ve purchased the game. Nice. More bad news? Yes, EA has also cut the funding for the Speedhunters car-culture media, shutting down another car/NFS-related project.
On top of that, the developers who brought us Need For Speed: Unbound four years ago are currently working on the next Battlefield game, hence why we don’t have a new NFS title already. In fact, Criterion Games is not unfamiliar with working on other game genres as they’ve also helped in developing Battlefield 2042, Battlefield 1, Battlefield V, and Star Wars: Battlefront I and II. And, they’ve promised fans a new Need For Speed game.
Yes, you speed lovers, there actually is a pinch of good news at the end of all this racing darkness. Criterion Games has in fact announced that the Need For Speed franchise will continue but there’s a catch. The development for that game will start once they’re done with the new Battlefield game which translates to 2026/2027, resulting in the next NFS game’s possible release in 2029 or maybe even 2030 as a possible next-gen title.
However, this is the longest time we’ll be waiting for a new Need For Speed game, and that’s if nothing changes and the development plans work out perfectly. But what if the next BF sells like hotcakes? EA will most definitely pivot and might end the Need For Speed franchise forever. With all 4 studios of DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect, and Criterion Games working on Battlefield, it’s quite evident what the ultimate goal of the company is.
