It’s been more than 2 weeks since Need for Speed Unbound was released, and the truth is that its commercial debut is not what was expected in the United Kingdom. Along with the latter, the dynamics on Steam remain very similar and sales have not started well enough. From Criterion they remained firm with the game development, but it seems that several senior officials have left the company.
GamesIndustry.biz has reported that important members of Criterion Games have left the team after releasing Need for Speed Unbound. Chief among these is Matt Webster, Criterion’s vice president and general manager, with 23 years of experience. He is followed by Alan McDairmant, head of development, who also has 17 years working at the company.
They weren’t the only ones, as Need for Speed Unbound technical director Andrei Shires had been with Criterion for 16 years, while executive producer Pete Lake had been with the development team for 26 years. The latest abandonment has been made by Steve Uphill, head of content, after supporting the saga for a decade. From Eurogamer they collect that they have left the company for “new opportunities outside of EA”.
What did we think of Need for Speed Unbound?
At 3DJuegos we had the opportunity to play it in depth, and our colleague Abelardo defined it as follows: “It arrives without making much noise and surprises with a gameplay that bets on what it does best, lots of fun. With more than 140 cars , multiple urban circuits and the tension of escaping from the ever-present police, Unbound demonstrates why EA’s street racing saga is one of the benchmarks in the industry,” reads the Need for Speed Unbound analysis.
Of course, what they can boast of is that they have given us the opportunity to create the car of our dreams through more than 10,000 customization options. They also boasted of intense and frantic police pursuits.