Need To EvolveAs Need For Speed turns 30, the devs currently running the series say the biggest challenge new entries face is "literally the age of the franchise""The trajectory has been bumpy, actually, in some cases."Image credit: EA/VG247 Article by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Nov. 22, 2024 I remember going to what was probably the local video game shop or computer shop, and me and my friends saw it on the 3DO, and we were like whats this?, we all jumped on it, and you felt badass, current Need For Speed producer Patrick Honnoraty says. Being able to drive it, being chased by the cops, there wasnt an experience that was really like it at the time.Since the release of that game - The Need for Speed or Road and Track presents: The Need For Speed if you want to stick to whats on the box art - in 1994, the racing genre has evolved to a place no one could really have predicted back then. Not least me, as I write this, given Id not be born for another half a decade or so.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. But Need For Speed has stuck around, and next month, it hits the milestone of turning 30 years old. Thats 30 years of changing and evolving in different ways, some inevitably more well-received by players than others, a sentiment that isnt lost on the current and former NFS developers who spoke at a recent 30th anniversary roundtable attended by VG247.The trajectory has been bumpy actually, in some cases, Honnoraty acknowledges, but whats happened and I think whats been most important is that if you think about the first inception of what The Need For Speed was, it was really accessible, really easy.He continues that in his estimation, Need For Speeds really tried to stay true to that formula established by the original. Its still accessible today, a lot of car racing games are not so easily accessible, so people still have the option to jump into a Need For Speed game. Another important factor in the devs eyes is staying relevant to the ever-changing trends of car culture, with Honnoraty saying: Its [vehicle artists like] Bryn [Alban] and Frankie [Yip]s job all the time to be looking at whats happening, and upcoming trends, and trying to include that back into the game.Id say in [Need For Speeds] trajectory of its ups and downs, its probably been at some of its worst times when those things have been removed actually, he adds, When customisation has not found its way into the priorities that weve set, and its been removed from the game, I think the games suffered in those times when we had that. Is it really a Need For Speed game if you can't stick on some new rims, tune the engine, and embrace your inner artist with some vinyl? | Image credit: EAThats the thing though, as the series has grown and changed over time - from those earliest joyrides to the noughties street racing romps of Underground and Most Wanted, then on to trying some different stuff with games like Prostreet, The Run and the Shifts, before moving into its latest era thats seen development move from Criterion to Ghost Games and then back to Criterion - its become a lot of things in the eyes of an awful lot of players. So where does that leave it in November 2024?I think today the biggest challenge we face is literally the age of the franchise, and what its been, Honnoraty says. Its been so many different things and appeals to so many different people that we even see the debates between players [as to] which is the best game, and why is it the best game.Ill give you an example. When we had Need For Speed Payback at EA Play, we had people on the booth, people would jump [in] and they would play the highway heist. They would come off the booth and Id be like How was it?, and theyd be like Oh man, that reminds me of Most Wanted, that was amazing and then [other] people would come up and go Oh man, that reminded me of Underground, it was so good. Im like How? What? Theyre totally different!So, I think its just people carry with them the feeling that they had when they played those games. Some of them skipped ones and then came back for others. I think thats the hardest thing today, is honestly reconciling what Need For Speed means to players, and youve seen it - when we go in one direction with something [and] it doesnt quite work, it doesnt appeal to certain sorts of players, and we go in another direction. Its a real thing that we have to tackle, day-in, day-out. John [Stanley, Criterion senior creative director] and I work with it constantly, Honnoraty concludes, joking: We think weve nearly cracked it. Have they cracked it? Well, that probably depends on what you want from an NFS game. | Image credit: EAIt means so much to so many different people and everybodys got a different opinion as to what a good Need For Speed is, adds vehicle art director Bryn Alban. So, trying to appease everybody at all times is super difficult, even down to the nitty-gritty details of what customisation we put on our cars. Its so divisive a subject for our players that its almost impossible for us to get it 100% right all the time.While listening to that spread of vocal and passionate fan viewpoints and opinions is clearly important for developers working on the series, long-time NFS developer, Justin Wiebe - currently a studio design director at Battlefield studio Ripple Effect - says its not just a case of trying to blindly make something that the pleases every potential player with each entry. Especially with a series that for a while had annual - or near annual - releases.I think for me, one of the largest learnings and challenges is that if you try to make something for everyone, what you wind up doing is watering it down and making something for nobody in particular, he says, So, you really do have to be ruthless with your vision and say We are going to take this component, this part of what people love about Need For Speed and were going to bring it to the next level.Then [its about] what does that mean, and were looking, we know that other people are going to miss X, Y and Z, because thats what Need For Speed is for them. So, are we ok with that? How do we massage it? How do we manage the message for what this particular Need For Speed is gonna be about? Ill go back to my experience on Prostreet, which, as we say, talk about taking risks - lets take Need For Speed off the streets, out of the open world, lets make it sanctioned on racetracks in professional sporting events, and say This is your Need For Speed. There was none of this - well, aside from the driving cars bit - in Prostreet. | Image credit: EAPeople are like What about the story, what about the cops, what about this? Its like Yes, we understand those arent there, but we made a decision, we want to go big, we want to bring car culture to sanctioned racing tracks, and that was the vision for this years Need For Speed. Thats the hardest thing, is to make these decisions that we know are going to be polarising for players, but that we believe is best for that particular product in that moment in time.Naturally, this is something the most recent entries in the series - and the ones thatll inevitably follow them as it accelerates on into the next 30 years - continue to grapple with in the quest to keep on evolving what a Need For Speed game can be.Even in my time recently, Honnoraty says, We did a kind of version of Hot Pursuit [with] Rivals, we then changed and we kinda went back to a re-imagining of what would Underground look like today, bringing back customisation, we even then looked at focusing on a very much more action-oriented game [with Payback].Then [we] moulded some of those things together to create something like Heat, brough in Heats idea of risk [vs] reward and doubled down on it for Unbound to create the calendar system. So, its always re-inventing, always trying to pick the ideas that make what you do with these vehicles interesting. Something thats slightly beyond the racing, but the racing is always still at the core of what they are.I think thats what weve done, for good and for bad, because those things [being] risks, they dont always work and they dont always resonate with players, but youll guarantee we will always be doing something different.