When Ghost Games, a division of EA Games, announced a reboot for the Need for Speed franchise, gamers everywhere rejoiced like Jesus was coming back. Memories of relentless police chases, in-depth storylines, and car customization flashed through our minds at high speed. When the game finally hit shelves, there’s no denying that it was pretty awesome, but it had some serious flaws. The most ridiculous flaw had to be the “always online” nature of the game in that you couldn’t play an actual single-player campaign and couldn’t even pause a game – not for your mother, not to let the dog out, and not for the end of the world. And, there was another big flaw – the police chases just weren’t as good as they should have been. It was actually difficult to get your heat level up there enough to have a damn good chase. All of that is about to change, however, with a new installment of our favorite franchise. And, the best part is, it’ll be on the shelves in time for Christmas.

See, Ghost Games and EA have actually listened to the fans and is addressing all of the concerns with the next installment. We have very little to go on at the current time, but a recent newsletter promises better police chases and a single player mode where you don’t have to be online or interact with other players. After all, there’s nothing worse than busting your thumbs on a difficult race 15 times just to have a player from across the world jump in front of you and ruin it all just seconds before you win, right? And, don’t worry about losing your ability to customize your rides, either, as the newsletter promises that the “customization will play as strong a role as ever.” The most interesting thing of all, though, is the single teaser image that depicts a world that is lit by the sun. That’s right; we might not be stuck in the moonlight any longer.

Will it be the Game We Always Wanted?

When the rebooted NFS game came out, I made it a point to run out and get it as soon as possible. After all, the in-depth customization engine, the graphics, even the storyline all sounded very promising, and I had to partake in the goodness. I have to say that while I loved the customization, the whole “always online” situation was rather annoying. I don’t know how many times some asshat from somewhere else in the world ruined one of my races just because he could. This very thing is the reason why I never even completed the storyline. Now that this problem will be taken care of, I’m really looking forward to the next installment. Don’t get it twisted, I sure hope we can get online and race with friends, but as far as the storyline goes, I’d rather go it alone. The other big thing in my book is that Ghost and EA are going to work on improving the police chases. It should have come off as common sense that players loved that aspect of the game, but I guess it didn’t. After all, who doesn’t love running from the cops?

It honestly never bothered me that the game was set primarily at night. I always kind of hoped the sun would come up at some point, but the world already looked beautiful at night anyway, so it wasn’t all that bad. Daylight should bring improved game quality on our next-gen consoles, and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what the studio can do with it in the next instalment. For now, this is all we really have to go by, but we’ll be learning more at EA Play on June 2, which is also when we’ll most likely see the very first trailer. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait. Is there anything else you would like to see the studio do to improve the next installment of NFS? Let us know in the comments section below.