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Ever since entertainment industry heads discovered they could wring more money out of existing intellectual properties by way of sequels, prequels, and spin-offs, executives have risked further stretching and snapping their companies’ established goodwill with fans by rebooting franchises.
Ever since entertainment industry heads discovered they could wring more money out of existing intellectual properties by way of sequels, prequels, and spin-offs, executives have risked further stretching and snapping their companies’ established goodwill with fans by rebooting franchises. Sure, a lot of people consider the concept lazy, but with successes like Square Enix’s re-imagining of Tomb Raider and NetherRealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat relaunch several years back, it’s been lucrative business for the gaming industry.
With reboots being all the rage this day and age, Electronic Arts has hopped on the trend train this year by announcing “new” versions of both the popular Star Wars Battlefront, and Need for Speed series. While the former has an initial launch time set for November 17, a now-defunct link from the Xbox store intimates that the Need for Speed reboot is set to drop just in time for holiday sales as well with a release date of November 3.
According to an informal cut-and-paste text description from Reddit user “lipeeeeee”, the EA published and Ghost Gamesdeveloped Need for Speed will possibly have game modes with “5 unique ways to play, Speed, Style, Build, Crew and Outlaw, enabling you to earn reputation and ultimately win your way.” Plus, the unofficial excerpt reveals that the title will have multiple overlapping stories set in Ventura Bay, which will give fans a variety of West Coast environments in which to race, such as an urban downtown area, a harbor by the water, and some canyons. Like previous iterations of the game, it’s also reported that players can customize their car’s visuals and performance in order to best reflect the the attributes of their character.
So far, Electronic Artshas only officially announced that Need for Speed has a release date set for the third fiscal quarter, which is October through December. Even so, with the title being so heavily coveted, the suggestion of the game dropping right before the holiday season lends an air of credibility to the unconfirmed statement, particularly due to the fact that video game sales skyrocket right around that time of year.
With most of this information being uncorroborated at the moment, fans awaiting Need for Speed will more than likely have all of their questions answered during Electronic Arts’ E3 press conference this year. But for the time being, all we know for sure is that the reboot will be open worldand will have a fresh, immersive story. On top of that, we can at least rest easy knowing that it will look beautiful, as it’s powered by FrostBite, which is the same engine for Star Wars Battlefront .
Again, the Need for Speed reboot has been given an official release slate of anywhere between October and December, but it’s highly likely that it will race into stores on November 3 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: Reddit(via Game Informer)