When that new game is going to come was a mystery until today's announcement by the series' Publishers EA. We've got everything you need to know right here!
With the PS5 and Xbox Series X being released this year, the next main series NFS instalment will be the first on next-gen. When exactly this was going to be was guesswork until now.
We don't have a definitive release date yet though; we don't even have a title at the moment. The "fiscal year of 2022" is when EA stated the next-gen NFS will be released.
In layman's terms, that's between the start of April 2021 and end of March 2022. Given that NFS usually comes out in the Autumn, November 2021 is a likely month.
Who will develop it?
NFS is a series that's been out on the market for over 25 years now and has gone through a lot of different developers in that time.
Ghost Games developed Heat, but they have since been dropped by EA. Ghost have been replaced by Criterion, who had developed NFS games in the PS3/ 360 era.
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Criterion originally developed the Burnout series, something that becomes abundantly clear when you play 2010's Hot Pursuit. Criterion also developed 2012's Most Wanted and co-developed Rivals before Ghost took over the reins.
What to expect from next-gen
When leaping up to a new console generation, you always expect big strides in the quality of games. EA haven't pulled any punches about what we can expect for 2021-22, including how many major releases we'll see:
“We plan to launch at least six new games on the next-gen consoles in fiscal year 2022."
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"These will include a new Need for Speed game that is bringing some astounding visual leaps, developed by the Criterion team, who have launched some of the most highly-rated games in franchise history."
Whether next-gen NFS will only be available on the new consoles remains to be seen. Given past form, though, you'd have to guess that it will be, especially since those new graphics won't be easy to scale down.