Earlier in the year, we brought news that Need for Speed was officially ‘on ice’ as Unbound developer Criterion moved over to work on Battlefield 6 – and the fresh discovery of an NFS fan site being closed down points towards a longer hiatus for EA’s premiere racing series than we first assumed.
As shared by the folks over at VGC, Speedhunters — an EA-backed NFS fan site that focused on wider car culture — has had its funding pulled by the publishing giant. Speedhunters contributor Matthew Everingham shared the news on social media, where they claimed that EA has “shelved” the franchise.
Here’s what they shared in the post:
“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. I’m still shooting, just shifting gears into more video.”
We should note that this information isn’t coming directly from EA, but the fan site is backed by the NFS maker, and has been for roughly two decades. As part of that official update we got earlier in the year, EA said “we plan to bring the franchise back in new and interesting ways”, so there’s every chance that this plan is still in the pipeline, but probably not for a while.
As we mentioned up above, Criterion made the last Need for Speed game back in 2022, but it’s now been pulled to work on the next Battlefield alongside quite a few other studios. We’ll be sure to update you folks if we hear anything official on the future of Need for Speed in the coming months.