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The next Need for Speed game from EA will be titled Need for Speed Undercover, EA boss man John Riccitello has confirmed.
Little-to-nogameplay details were revealed when we contact EA, but Riccitello didreveal during a recent speech that the game would feature a "verystrong mission structure", and an embedded storyline, according tovarious reports.
The Transporter, film (directed by DOA: Dead or Alivevisionary Corey Yuen) focused on an ex-Special Forces op played byactor Jason Statham. As a "transporter" for hire, Statham's characterwould accept cash to transport "goods," no questions asked. The resultwas a lot of fast action and s**t exploding, which would be a newdirection for EA's Need for Speed series.
No word on whatplatforms the game will land on, but you can pretty much guarantee thatif you own it, EA's making the game for it. Need for Speed: Undercover is said to be available in 2009.
Riccitello also admitted that the previous game, Pro Street, wasn't quite up to scratch (as this review will tell you),but to make sure that doesn't happen again, he went on to reveal thatthe series has been shifted over to a two-year development cycle, whichhas two separate teams working to release games biannually.
Just as Pro Street tried to take theseries in a new direction, Undercover is expected to try new thingswith the franchise too, but our EA contact declined to reveal anyfurther info, other than that more details will be revealed soon.Obviously.
No platforms were specified, so we'll assume it'll be on everything. Absolutely everything.
Electronic Arts CEOJohn Riccitiello has stated Undercover has a considerably longer development cycle than its predecessors since the Need for Speeddevelopment team now is split up into two teams, both of which willwork on a 24 month development cycle with future titles, alternatingreleases between them. When this change was implemented in mid-summer 2007, one team started working on Undercover (giving it only a 16.5 month development cycle), while the other team finished ProStreet (the previous release) and then started working on the next title in the series (coming out in 2009),which will have a full 24 months. He also confessed to "torturing" thedevelopment team in the past, discouraging innovation and admitted thatProStreet "isn't good" and he is confident Undercover will be much better. Riccitiello also stated Undercover is taking inspiration from action films such as The Transporter, with a large embedded narrative.