EA Continues Racing Culls As Classic...

Publisher Electronic Arts’ culling of its racing franchises continues, as another racing property appears to be on hold. This follows EA’s announcement in April that its rally racing series franchise is on “pause.”

This time around, it appears EA’s fan-favorite and longest-standing racing franchise is the one on ice.

Although no official announcement has been made, content creators affiliated with the franchise have seemingly confirmed it recently.

Need For Speed Franchise Suffers Engine Failure

The news comes from contributor Matthew Everingham, who is part of the Speedhunters website, which is officially connected to the Need for Speed franchise. Posting on Instagram, Everingham said, “Speedhunters is on ice. EA shelved Need For Speed, and that means no more funding for the site.”

“Grateful for everything — the trips, the stories, the lifelong mates,” added Everingham.

The Speedhunters website/community hasn’t been updated for several months now, and its social media accounts, which we presume are handled by EA, have recently been updated with blackout profile pictures, which is never a good sign. Its online store is now also offline, which makes this semi-official, even if EA hasn’t made a formal announcement yet.

Earlier this year, EA announced that work on the next Need for Speed had been put on hold, as the studio working on it, Criterion, had shifted its focus to work on the next Battlefield game. Criterion joins DICE, Ripple Effect and Motive Studio, as the four first-party studios tasked to bring the latest iteration of the next Battlefield game to reality.’

Criterion, alongside Motive, is believed to handle the development duties of the single-player component of the shooter. EA has stated that we can expect the official announcement of Battlefield 6 sometime this summer.

The latest Need for Speed game released was Need for Speed Unbound, which was released on current-gen consoles and PC in 2022. While the game reviewed fairly well, it wasn’t the live-service success EA hoped it would be, with seasonal support for the racing game officially ending earlier this year.