60-65 Criterion staff are working on Need For Speed Rivals

60-65 Criterion staff are working on Need For Speed Rivals
David Scammell Updated on by

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Between 60 and 65 Criterion employees are working on Need For Speed Rivals alongside the 85 people at Ghost Games, Criterion’s creative director has told VideoGamer.com.

Talking to us at E3, Craig Sullivan, who has temporarily moved over to Ghost to help oversee development on Rivals, said that the upcoming game was being developed “in association with Criterion” but being “creatively run out of Ghost”.

“There’s a lot of Criterion DNA in here,” said Sullivan. “Obviously, I was the creative director on Most Wanted and Hot Pursuit, so with me going over and working full-time with the guys at Ghost… We’ve got 85 people in the office working on all of this stuff. But there’s still 60-65 guys at Criterion working on this, mainly coders and artists. So it’s in association with Criterion but it’s creatively run out of Ghost.”

Criterion VP Alex Ward, however, isn’t one of them. Instead, he’s working on “special, secret Criterion stuff,” Sullivan says.

The sheer amount of Criterion staff working on Need For Speed Rivals may go some way towards explaining the game’s familiar feel, which appears to merge the best of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit and last year’s Most Wanted.

I went hands-on with the game earlier today and came away wondering whether it could be Xbox One & PS4’s first must-have racer

Source: VideoGamer.com interview