Criterion Is Working with DICE on Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

In a recent interview, Henry LaBounta, the art director of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, has given some insight on the creation of the title's huge open world. Criterion Games is working with Swedish developer DICE of Battlefield fame to achieve this objective.

Apparently, the world in Hot Pursuit is four times bigger than what Criterion has done in Burnout Paradise. Also the developer intends to really bring something new to the table this time around and not reiterate its work in the Burnout series.

Speaking to Digital Foundry, Henry LaBounta, a developer who has also been involved in the development of NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 and NFS: Most Wanted, has said he was very happy with how things were going.

He also talked about Criterion's collaboration with DICE in this area, saying that, “It's been a great collaboration actually. Early on we set style guides for what we wanted to create out of this game, to offer players the ability to see a wide variety of types of environments from the deserts to the mountains to the forest to the coastal routes and so forth.”

He continued that, “We started talking to them about what we wanted to do and they got excited about the project; they have a very talented team of artists at DICE led by Johannes Söderqvist, their art director.

“We created all the roads here, we did a lot of work to get the gameplay right before we made it look pretty.

“They took those roads and those style guides and delivered 110 per cent on what we were looking for with the final result.”

The Hot Pursuit reboot is really set to shake things up in the franchise, as Criterion will not be using the previous urban setting.

“In our creative brief we were going for this concept of 'Need for Speed meets high-end car commercials', so if you look at any advertising for high end cars, you'll often see this exotic car on a desert road and it looks absolutely fantastic,” LaBounta explained.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit will be released for the PC, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii on the 16th of November in North America and on the 19th of November in Europe.