“Never say never”: Criterion aren’t ruling out a return to Need For Speed, but Battlefield is their only focus for now

Last week, to mark its 30th anniversary, EA rebranded Criterion as Criterion: A Battlefield Studio. The storied studio that created Burnout and in recent years has shepherded the Need For Speed series, as well as working on the rebooted Star Wars: Battlefront, will become just one of the four studios supporting EA’s fresh Battlefield push.

This isn’t the first time Criterion have contributed to Battlefield, the Guildford studio have been involved since 2015’s Battlefield 1, but the rebranding marks an end to working on other projects.

Or is it?

For the next couple of days, I’m at the Develop Conference in Brighton, which means I’m being that prick at the end of a talk who pipes up with a question that can be rapidly turned around into a news story. Today’s question: Over the past 30 years, Criterion have demonstrated what they can achieve with creative freedom, won’t narrowing to becoming a Battlefield-only studio stifle their creativity?

“Obviously, we’re not going to be going off with a game about dinosaurs,” Criterion senior producer Danny Isaac says, adding “That has come up multiple times.” Though, he argues that there is freedom within Battlefield. “The way I see it is that the Battlefield franchise, now platform, is so vast there’s a lot of opportunity. We’ve got areas such as Portal, user-generated content, multiplayer, [and] singleplayer campaign. There’s a lot of opportunity. We’re always looking for new ways to bring Battlefield players in – as we’re seeing with RedSEC and battle royale.

“So, on the one hand, it could be seen as constrained. But, [as someone told me], give me the freedom of a tightly constrained brief. Sometimes that constraint can drive creativity.”

“When we talk about demystifying how all these studios work together, I think consistency isn’t conformity,” Criterion Director of Operations Amy Pejic added. “EA picked four really unique studios for their skills. There’s a reason we’re a part of that team, right? It hasn’t muted what makes Criterion ‘Criterion’. There’s still room to defy those expectations [and] to think about things a little bit differently. We don’t have again process for process’ sake that pushes down and [means] every studio has to be the same. Every studio is still going to show up as themselves in this larger portfolio.”

‘But what does it mean for non-Battlefield projects? Have we seen the last Criterion Need For Speed, the last Burnout?,” I throw in before the mic can be seized from me.

“I think Burnout, we put that one down a while ago,” Isaac says. “Need For Speed? Yes, for now, we’re focused on Battlefield Studios. But you’ve seen the journey that we’ve been on, I’d never say never. Things change. EA changed. They’ve different viewpoints, but we’re on Battlefield.”

“My colleague said this best,” Pejic says. “We can do any game, right now we’re focused on Battlefield.”

I will say that sounds a lot like the Henry Ford aphorism: “Any color the customer wants, as long as it’s black.”