EA, Ghost Games und Criterion Games haben jetzt den neusten Teil der Need for Speed-Serie offiziell angekündigt. Das Game trägt den Titel Need for Speed: Rivals, verfügt über die Frostbite 3-Engine und soll sowohl für die Current Gen- als auch für die Next Gen-Konsolen erscheinen. Der Release ist für den 19. November 2013 geplant, die Xbox One- und PS4-Versionen folgen später. Eine Wii U-Version ist nicht geplant.
"What's really great with the Frostbite 3 framework is that it's really scalable," Nilsson said of the engine's ability to perform on current-generation consoles. "Battlefield 3 was built on Frostbite 2, but with really high capabilities. Going to Frostbite 3, it's not like it's a brand new engine. We've been developing that engine," Nilsson adds. Noting how EA's latest internal engine of choice has become an iterative component throughout development, Nilsson added his team has "had an engine from day one to start building upon."
There won't, however, be a Wii U version of Need for Speed Rivals, and Nilsson is sticking to the company line that the Frostbite engine doesn't play nice with Nintendo's console. "Yeah, Frostbite is not really set up for Wii U. I don't have all the information, so it wouldn't be right for me to speak about it. Frostbite 3 is a really capable engine, it's scalable and it gives us a big advantage on the next generation to support the Xbox One and the PS4, but it's not being developed on the Wii U."
Though he wouldn't specify any content potentially removed from next-gen versions, the former DICE executive producer noted "the next-gen consoles will have different capabilities and in some aspects, a different feature-set." Other than the enhanced graphical fidelity – including new weather effects – and an increase in online player counts on next-gen platforms, no specific differences in content were revealed. Nilsson did confirm, however, that the size of the world will be the same across all platforms.
