Need For Speed Will Be Developed By Combined Criterion And Codemasters Cheshire Studio

Codemasters Cheshire has officially announced that it is merging with Criterion Games to work on Need for Speed collectively as part of a single studio. Going forward, Codemasters Cheshire will be folded into Criterion, which will have two development sites in the UK. Criterion will remain in Guildford while Codemasters will stay in Cheshire to form "one Criterion studio," Codemasters said in a tweet thread today.

"This integration builds off the close partnership the two studios have developed over the past few months," Codemasters said. "Sharing common values and similar cultures, we strongly believe unifying the huge wealth of expertise across both teams will help us to deliver the best racing experiences we can for players."

EA acquired Codemasters for $1.2 billion in 2020, and many expected that the studio would one day merge with EA's other big racing-focused team, Criterion. It's not immediately clear what, if anything, this merger means for the future of Codemasters' franchises, such as F1, Grid, and Project Cars.

The next Need for Speed game has not been announced yet, but it will be here relatively soon. EA announced during its latest earnings briefing that the new Need for Speed game will launch during its FY23 Q3, which means it'll launch by the end of the 2022 calendar year.

Codemasters, meanwhile, just recently released Grid Legends in February, which will be followed by F1 2022 in July.

Additionally, a new Need for Speed mobile game from Tencent is apparently in the works. What appears to be the first footage from this title recently leaked on Reddit--check it out below.

EA acquired Criterion in 2004, putting it to work on Need for Speed games. More recently, Criterion contributed to the development of Battlefield V and Star Wars: Battlefront II, with EA's other studio, EA Gothenburg, handling the Need for Speed series. That has changed, however, as Criterion is back in the driver's seat for the Need for Speed franchise, now with the help of Codemasters.