EA Announces Hot Pursuit Reboot

To kick off their E32010 press conference, EA opened the show with a first look at Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. Promising exotic cars, epic drives, and plenty of chases, Hot Pursuit is currently in development by Burnout developer Criterion Games and marks a return to the Hot Pursuit series which first released in 1998.

Criterion will be fleshing out a full career mode where players can adopt the role of both racers and cops, and promise new ways to connect, compare, and compete with friends via Hot Pursuit Autolog. The Autolog will be a suite of connected features that shares information about friends, race times, pursuit scores, and cop rankings.

A brief demo unfolded via two-player split screen – a cop versus a suspect careened down a heavily wooded rural road. The pair vied for the lead – the suspect trying to successfully shake the chase, and the cop trying to get ahead and block the suspect’s path. Playing as a cop we were able to hear radio chatter about road blocks being deployed ahead, but the race ended abruptly as the cop took out the fleeing vehicle and it crashed to a halt. The word “busted” flashed across the screen and the race came to a close.

You can check out Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit yourself on November 16 on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.