Need for Speed 2019 has seemingly been leaked by an online retailer, with the new Need for Speed game popping up in an Austrian store. Need for Speed Heat will reportedly release in 2019 for both PS4 and Xbox One, which was previously confirmed by its development team in a Reddit post.
While it was stated that a new NFS game was on its way, this is the first time that the game’s title has been mentioned. Though Austrian retailer Gameware’s listing hasn’t been confirmed, it is the first mention of Need for Speed Heat, with the site currently taking pre-orders for the unannounced game.
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The placeholder box art used in the listing was lifted from promotional art for the mobile game Need for Speed No Limits, which suggests that this mock-up was created by Gameware and not the NFS team. Though this makes the listing seem less credible, it could be that Gameware added the image to complement the information they had received.
In the Reddit post earlier this year, the new Need for Speed‘s developers said that they are working on an “amazing game” that would be “released this year.” They also confirmed that the game wouldn’t make its way to E3 2019, but that more information was on the horizon. It seems that Gameware may have beaten them to the punch.
The last Need for Speed game was 2017’s Need for Speed Payback, which received a middling critical and consumer reception. The racing sequel came under fire for its heavy-handed implementation of microtransactions, which damaged the game’s progression system. EA later altered its microtransactions so that loot boxes were handed out more frequently to players, following the backlash against Star Wars Battlefront 2‘s microtransactions.
Need for Speed 2019 has yet to be officially announced, so Gameware’s placeholder Need for Speed Heat listing hasn’t been confirmed at the time of this writing. However, with the NFS dev team stating that a new entry in the series is on its way this year, we should have more info sooner rather than later.
Need for Speed 2019 | When is the new Need for Speed releasing?
The new Need for Speed game has yet to be confirmed, though its developers have already stated that it’s on its way in 2019.
In a submission on the r/needforspeed subreddit, the team wrote:
“This year is a bit of a special one for NFS, too, as we are turning 25 years. We’ve had almost 25 years going fast, and we can’t wait to kickstart our 26th with the next NFS game.
And while we’ve had some great memories over those twenty-five years, we’re not here to look back and reminisce. We’ve got our eyes set firmly on the future. But even while focusing on the future – especially this year – we’ve also thought a lot about what NFS means to you, and perhaps more importantly what we hope it will mean as we move forward.
Cars naturally top the list. You could say that the cars and customization of NFS are the beating heart of what we do. Without either of these, NFS fails to exist as we know it. These two elements play a pivotal role in the series and are two aspects that we consider to be foundational, meaning they aren’t going anywhere because NFS wouldn’t exist without them.
But NFS is also the culmination of many different aspects, and there’s a special essence that appears when all these aspects come together at a very high quality, an essence that helps create that unique NFS feeling. You could say this essence is our DNA, and it’s exactly what we’re injecting straight into our next project.
Tradition, and our above note about a new game later this year, dictates that this is the time when you’ll be eagerly hitting F5 on our Social Media channels, waiting for that first detailed sign of something new, for that first teaser to drop. But let’s hold fire on that for now.
Because traditions are all well and good, but they can also be broken, and new ones forged. Just because we’ve done something one way for the last few years, doesn’t mean we should continue to do so.
Are you going to hear more about the next NFS title? Yes. Is it being released this year? Yes. Will we be doing anything in June? No. It’s as simple as that, but we wanted to give you a heads up before you started asking “where are you?” Our goal is to deliver a truly memorable high-speed entry into the 25 years of NFS, rather than a series of promotional events. The game matters most – a sentiment we bet you share with us.
With that, know that we’re here, we’re building an amazing game that we can’t wait to show off, and the next time we talk, we’ll be packing our bags and heading south for the full unveiling. We’ll see you then.”
