The future of Need for Speed: learning from Criterion and the dangers of always-online
“We could force it down player’s throats, if we wanted to,” says Ghost producer.
By its own admission, EA didn’t quite hit the ground running on Xbox 360. As EA Games label boss Frank Gibeau recalled last year, the publisher was slow to nail down the technology necessary to capitalise on trends like HD and online console multiplayer. Gibeau is adamant, however, that this won’t happen again on Xbox One and PS4. EA has spent the past few years converting DICE’s Frostbite engine from a platform for Battlefield games to an all-purpose, cross-gen and multiplatform blockbuster monster, as comfortable rendering a fireball spell in Dragon Age: Inquisition on Xbox One as recreating a helicopter crash in Battlefield 4 for Xbox 360.