Creative Director Kieran Crimmins on why the NFS Unbound reveal came so late: ‘sorry we couldn’t talk earlier’
It’s a game that took everyone by surprise.
When looking at Need for Speed Unbound, few things catch your eye more than its anime aesthetic. But the artistic inspirations aren’t as obvious as you might think. it’s more wall piece than One Piece, taking cues from street artists around the world.
It’s a game that took everyone by surprise, thanks to that bold visual style and the fact it’s launching in just over a month. Criterion wanted to show the world sooner, according to creative director Kieran Crimmins.
“That wasn’t my choice,” he explains in an interview with GLHF. “Because I’m not a marketer, and I don’t put together the marketing. But I believe the strategy behind that is that a short marketing window allows us to deliver a really powerful and succinct message to everyone.
“So we don’t leave people hanging for ages for like, when’s the next update, what’s happening next, and, you know, leave people in the lurch.
“And not only that, it can really break through – there’s a lot of stuff happening in the world, there’s always a lot of stuff. So, by having a really, really compressed marketing, then we can get our message really concise and really strongly across in a very short amount of time.”
Of course, there’s a downside to it, which is leaks. We’ve known for a long time that EA and Criterion Games were working on a new Need for Speed game that would have been carrying an “anime aesthetic” of sorts. And that’s because of insiders spoiling the reveal of the game while developers (and marketers) were still working on it behind the scenes.
“Yeah, that stuff can be quite painful as well, because, you know, we’re always desperate to show it off,” says Crimmins. “But that was it. I still believe this is a very, very good marketing strategy. But yeah, I could see why it would leave people frustrated sometimes.
“So, sorry we couldn’t talk earlier. But at least everyone gets to see something every week now. So the news is coming thick and fast.”
Internally, this hasn’t taken away anything from the pleasure of being back to Need for Speed.
Criterion Games has worked on the franchise as co-developer during Ghost Games’ tenure – three games, including Need for Speed, Payback, and Heat – and is now back to work on it as the main developer again after the Most Wanted remake.
“So, for us, it felt like we never stopped, we just jumped back onto if anything – it’s like an old pair of boots,” Crimmins says. “We always worked with the other studios working on Need for Speed. So it’s not like we were apart from the development process. And we were always, you know, sharing knowledge and helping out where we could.
“But to take the lead was actually refreshing and exciting for our team, because it’s a franchise that we deeply, deeply love in the studio. And there’s so many passionate people that are passionate about all the different versions that the franchise has been throughout its history.
“So, when we got the news that we were going to be able to do it, as you can imagine, there was a big celebration. I was very excited that we could give something back to that franchise again.”
Written by Paolo Sirio on behalf of GLHF.