Exploring the Lack of a Most Wanted Remaster
It’s the question that has befuddled Need for Speed fans for over a decade now. Why has EA resisted remastering one of the most iconic entries in the long-running racing series – Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2005? Let‘s delve into the critical acclaim, influence and staying power of the original while analyzing missteps of the 2012 reboot. By evaluating EA’s typical approach to remasters, licensing challenges, and direction of recent NFS entries, we can piece together the puzzle of why fans still haven‘t gotten the Most Wanted remake they crave.
Magic Captured Lightning Never Remastered
Most Wanted delivered an expertly crafted open world racing experience. Razor’s menacing BMW M3 GTR. High stakes cop pursuits. An ingeniously woven narrative tying everything together as you battled your way to the top of the Blacklist. It earned rave reviews from critics like a 9.4/10 from IGN. Most Wanted took home numerous Game of the Year awards and is still widely considered one of the best games in the entire Need for Speed series nearly 20 years later.
So how has this certified classic not gotten a significant visual overhaul? As it turns out, its timeless presentation has proven both blessing and curse. Unlike early 3D racers, Most Wanted‘s graphics still hold up shockingly well, eschewing any dated polygons in favor of stylish visuals. When a game looks and plays great over 15 years later, the case for remastering becomes less obvious. Yet the title may end up overlooked by modern audiences unwilling to return to older console generations. An HD remaster could introduce Most Wanted to a new generation and satiate longtime devotees eager for deeper nostalgia.
Rebooting Nostalgia Gone Wrong
After a seven year wait following Most Wanted’s launch, Burnout developer Criterion took the reigns of the franchise aiming to reboot the Most Wanted concept for a modern audience in 2012. Despite a flashy coat of paint with licensed vehicles, slick social Autolog features and large open world, the remake rang hollow for many. The new title looked the part but lacked the original‘s soul – the palpable urban atmosphere, an engaging story, relevance of police pursuits and memorable characters like Clarence “Razor” Callahan.
While reviewers like IGN still gave mostly positive reviews, lackluster user reviews told a different story. Metacritic featured a stark disparity between the critics’ score of 84% and fans’ score of 55%. This critical rejection likely left EA gun shy about revisiting the Most Wanted concept. Seeing an iconic game flounder when updated may have erroneously convinced executives that remastering the original title could be an equally risky endeavor not worth the investment. But with dyed-in-the-wool fans still frothing for a proper improved port, now may be the perfect time to remaster this timeless classic.
EA’s Checkered Remaster History Offers Hope
Publisher EA has taken wildly different approaches across various beloved franchises regarding upgraded ports and remasters of acclaimed older installments. Mass Effect and Dead Space have gotten acclaimed Definitive Editions over a decade post-launch sprucing up visuals and bundling all DLC. Meanwhile Mirror’s Edge Catalyst provided more of a full conceptual reboot. Original Star Wars Battlefront titles were remastered to tide over fans during a long lapse putting out a proper sequel. Contrast this to the inception of the EA Sports line of yearly iterative installments.
Now after more than 15 years since the launch of the acclaimed original, Need for Speed: Most Wanted still awaits any kind of significant enhanced treatment. But based on EA’s willingness to eventually revisit so many of their other major franchises’ classic games mentioned above, there may still be light at the end of the tunnel for fans wishing Most Wanted gets its well-deserved due. The runaway success of the recent Dead Space remake likely bolsters the case further.
Licensed Soundtracks Present Barriers
Like with any entertainment product leveraging licensed intellectual property from other media, over time rights questions around vehicles, brands and music appearing in games get hairy. Renegotiating licenses to either extend or update them poses a common challenge for developers, even those backing projects via Kickstarter and other crowdfunding avenues. In many cases, strategies like substituting in new songs prove essential to clearing hurdles blocking official modern ports. Outcry over these unavoidable changed remains persistent from diehard fans reminiscing on their nostalgic memories linked to specific tunes or cars.
This complicated legal web is what often prevents beloved games from receiving official remasters necessary to run on new hardware and operating systems. While we lack behind the scenes insight on the specifics holding up a potential Need for Speed: Most Wanted remaster, it stands to reason that music licensing represents an area of contention. Would an overhaul with different songs still truly represent the authentic experience so many came to cherish? Faced with this dilemma, compromised may prove better than indefinitely depriving new generations of this masterful title by sticking to unreasonable demands.
What Do Developers Think About Reinventing Their Creation?
Many creators often bristle when others attempt to dramatically reimagine a concept they poured heart and soul into originally devising. Have the developers at EA’s internal Black Box studio chimed in at all regarding Criterion’s attempted 2012 reboot? 14 years later, where do they stand on the prospects of remastering the beloved title they birthed to critical fanfare?
In interviews, Black Box alumni have expressed bittersweet reactions to fan-led spiritual successors honoring their work on Need for Speed titles. This outpouring of support contrasts with EA shuttering their studio just a few short years after shipping Most Wanted ’05. Series mastermind and Black Box co-founder Patrick Gilmore shared hopes of integrating elements from his original Most Wanted concept and map in a hypothetical new NFS game moving forward. He says the team aspired to innovate within constraints – perhaps explaining partly why Criterion’s anything goes interpretation failed to strike the right notes in rebooting.
Assuming EA still maintains positive relationships fostered during that mid-2000s collaborative development process, bringing back Gilmore or other key Black Box personnel as creative consultants could bolster faithfulness and quality for any hypothetical Need for Speed: Most Wanted remaster project. Their invaluable input and protectiveness over the property they spawned may guarantee tasteful treatment above all else. Besides, they deserve a seat at the table enjoying the long-awaited appreciation from players finally getting to revisit their passion project with modern touches.
Recent Directions Clash With Most Wanted’s Fixed Vision
Since the launch of Need for Speed Underground, customizing rides has played a key role across much of the series. That aspect has taken on increased importance in more recent NFS entries like 2015‘s Need for Speed and Heat in 2019. Deep vehicle customization and expressing your style matters now more than ever. By contrast, Most Wanted 2005 had a more specific vision baked into its DNA – both in terms of the menacing murdered-out look of Razor’s BMW M3 GTR and the inability to even change visual color schemes of cars in your own garage. So the uncompromising creative identity and integral narrative focus of the original Most Wanted may seem slightly at odds with gameplay norms modern Need for Speed fans have grown accustomed to.
Yet classic games like Zelda maintain legendary status despite virtually no ability to customize or change up equipment. Most Wanted’s set campaign structure and car offerings taps into a similar type of curated approach valuing realized creative vision over sandbox freedom. Surely today’s gaming hardware provides ample room to accommodate both tailored artistic direction and player expression. So the long overdue remaster could feature the same core BMW M3 GTR driven campaign path while tossing in options for subquests, alternate rides and personal stylistic tweaks. Purists would have their beloved experience safely intact while expanded avenues for expression welcome in a younger generation craving garages of customized vehicles.
Most Wanted Remaster Still in the Cards?
Does a question mark still hang over whether one of the most decorated Need for Speed installments of all time in Most Wanted will get its due revamp for modern hardware? While EA has not yet publicly acknowledged plans to revisit the title that captivated fans back in 2005, we can still read the tea leaves pointing to a possible remaster emerging sooner or later.
With the runaway success of the Dead Space ground-up remake and renewed victim cries for Mass Effect continuing to echo, EA appears set to feed player demand for nostalgia trips down memory lane. Their typical timeline feels right for striking while interest around violating copyright still shines brightly. Racing remains a wildly popular genre and Need for Speed a bankable series now over 25 years running – prime for capitalizing on that rich history. Recent rumors indicate Most Wanted and other NFS classics may get integrated in some form into a legacy tribute game on the horizon. Plus with relative creative duds like Need For Speed Payback in 2017 still fresh in mind, throwing loyalists a bone by finally remastering Most Wanted just makes sense.
It’s impossible to definitively pinpoint one singular factor that has prevented Need for Speed’s most heralded game from receiving its richly deserved remaster treatment until now. As we‘ve explored here, a confluence of complex forces – from licensing logistics to clash of creative visions – likely all worked in tandem. But framed in proper context, none seem wholly insurmountable. And with ravenous fans only growing more parched by the year for another adrenaline pumping taste of Razor’s revenge story, eventually fiscal wisdom could overwhelm any lingering corporate hesitancy. We may not know exactly when or how, but all signs point to players one day getting to reexperience this classic NFS entry on modern machines. And maybe, just maybe, the wait shouldn’t have to last another 15 years. The roar of that snarling M3 growls louder as each year passes, hungry for the chase once again…
