need-for-speed-world-online posts

The development team at Criterion Games knows how to make a racing game from its work on the Burnout series. And it also knows how to make an open world driving game with its experience with its last game Burnout Paradise. But for the team's upcoming title Need For Speed Hot Pursuit it got some help from a fellow Electronic Arts dev studio.

As reported by Eurogamer, Digital Illusions (yep the team behind the Battlefield first person shooter titles) came in to help out Criterion's art team by filling in a lot of the art assets to the game's open world. Need For Speed Hot Pursuit is four times the size of the one Criterion made for Burnout Paradise. We will see how both teams' efforts work when the game is released in mid-November.

We are just a few weeks away from the official launch of Need For Speed World and today the official web site for the upcoming racing MMO has announced that the open beta period for the game will begin on Friday (that's tomorrow for those of you without a handy calendar) at 10 am Pacific time (that's 1 pm Eastern time).

Anyone will be able to play the game by registring at the game's official site. Developer-publisher Electronic Arts will run the open beta through Monday, July 5 which means it will be live through the entire Fourth of July holiday period. Previous beta accounts will still be active during the open beta phase. The final game will launch on July 20.

In just five days the exhibit halls will open and E3 2010 will officially begin. Big Download has been going over what PC games we want to see at the show in terms of first person shooters, action games and RPG-MMO titles. Now we conclude our preview with a look at the strategy, driving and other games we most want to check out on the E3 show floor.

Once again we have to point out that perhaps the biggest PC game release of 2010, Blizzard's StarCraft II, won't be on the show floor. However there are plenty of other major PC games that will be there next week.

Today seems to be the day that we learn about what you get if you put down some money for games ahead of their release. The Need For Speed World web site has posted up word of several pre-order offers for Electronic Arts' upcoming racing MMO game. While the game is free to play, players will only be able to progress up to a certain driver level if they decide just to play at the free level. The $19.99 Starter Pack will allow players to go beyond the free-to-play driver limit along with some extras features

Those extras include access to the game's current beta test, a one week head start when Need For Speed Online is officially launched later this year and more. EA's download store also gets you an exclusive car (the Toyota Corolla AE86) with the pre-order. Buying the Starter Pack from GameStop's web site gets you the exclusive Volkswagon Scirocco car while getting it from Direct2Drive nets you the Nissan Silvia 515. Finally ordering the Starter Pack from either Best Buy or Impulse gets you the exclusive Mazda 3.

Here's a story that got away from us but we are just catching up to reporting on it. A few days ago, the first English language beta testing began for Need For Speed World, the upcoming online persistant racing game from Electronic Arts. The game, previously known as Need For Speed World Online, will be inviting people to try out the beta in special events in the coming weeks and months ahead of the game's official launch later in 2010.

PC gamers will also get a chance to put their own stamp for the in-game version of a Porsche 959 for the game's launch. Details about how this will work will be revealed later.

For a short while it looks like Electronic Arts might abandon, or at least put on hold, their Need For Speed racing franchise after the poor critical notices and sales of 2008's Need For Speed Undercover. But the series got a lift thank to the release of Need For Speed Shift last year. Now as part of EA's financial press release today, they apparently have plans to release three Need For Speed games for the PC platform in their fiscal 2011 year.

Due out in the first fiscal quarter (April-June 2010) is the previously announced free-to-play game Need For Speed World Online. Two more games in the series will be released in the fall 2010 calendar quarter as well as the first quarter of the calendar year of 2011. It's very possible that one of those games will be developed by Criterion Games which has already been revealed as making a new Need For Speed game.

Update: During their financial conference call EA execs did confim that the Criterion-developed Need For Speed game would be released in the fourth quarter.

Electronic Arts' Need For Speed racing game franchise has been one of the publishers' tentpoles. Today EA announced that the franchise has now sold over 100 million units since it began with the first Need for Speed game in 1994. 15 games in the series have been released including this year's PC entry Need For Speed Shift which have created a total of $2.7 billion in revenues for EA over the years.

The press release annoucing this achievement goes over a number of the milestones the series has achieved including players racing over 279 billion miles in the games themselves.and creating 17 trillion user-generated car customization. EA's next announced game is Need For Speed World Online, a free-to-play online game that is scheduled to launch in 2010. While not officially announced it's known that Criterion Games, developer of the Burnout series, is now working on a new Need For Speed game.

Even though Electronic Arts already has two PC Need for Speed games in the pipeline (the racing sim Need For Speed Shift and the free-to-play MMO Need For Speed Online) two separate sources have confirmed that the publisher is also letting the Burnout team at Criterion Games take a crack at the long running racing game franchise.

EA's COO John Pleasants mentioned the news during today's William Blair 29th Annual Growth Stock Conference and Kotaku chatted with EA CEO John Riccitiello who also confirmed the news. Riccitiello said folks shouldn't expect a Burnout-NFS merger, saying only " . . . the team doing it is working on a revolutionary take on Need for Speed." There's no word on when the game will be released.

EA's efforts to relaunch the Need For Speed racing-action franchise this year has three prongs of attack and one of them is Need For Speed Shift, a more pure racing series that's under development at UK based Slightly Mad Studios. Today EA released new screenshots from Need For Speed Shift showing off more of what they have planned for the title.

Planned for both PC and console release this fall Need For Speed Shift will have features such as "a stunningly realistic first-person cockpit view camera and an all-new crash mechanic." You can check out a brief preview of the game at our sister site Joystiq. US PC gamers will also get to check out the free-to-play online game Need For Speed World Online this fall as well.

After the critical and sales failure of Need For Speed Undercover there were rumors that Electronic Arts was thinking about dumping their long running action-driving game series for good. So it was a bit of a surprise when word came out earlier this year that EA was launching not one but three all new Need For Speed games, two of which would appear for the PC.

One of those games is Need For Speed World Online, designed as a free-to-play online game that will launch in Asia first before coming to the US in late 2009. The Need For Speed web site has some more info about the title vis a chat with the game's producer Scott Henshaw. He reveals that the new game will be an open world enviroment that takes elements from the two fictional cities in two previous games; Need For Speed Most Wanted and Need For Speed Carbon. You can also expect to see the pursuit gameplay modes (in other words being chased by "the man") as well as other co-op and team modes.

A new screenshot showing an early look at the game's user interface was also released on the site. Henshaw states, "Instead of a traditional console view of a game, we're using a user-selectable gadget interface designed specifically for the PC." He added, "A lot of gamers now have more than one monitor so you could keep the game window entirely clean and then have all the gadgets sit in the other monitor." Sounds promising.