During yesterday's "Battlefield Labs" announcement, Electronic Arts revealed the full extent of its international multi-team development setup—dubbed "Battlefield Studios." According to their recent presentation, franchise originator—DICE (Stockholm)—is working alongside Ripple Effect (formerly DICE Los Angeles), Motive (Montreal) and Criterion (Guildford). EA's British studio is best known for its past work—most notably (going back nearly twenty-five years ago) the Burnout series and newer Need for Speed titles. The Surrey-based outfit appears to be completely devoted to working on the next Battlefield entry's single-player component—older press releases hinted about a new Need for Speed project. Around autumn 2023, Vince Zampella (Battlefield franchise overseer) announced that the majority of Criterion's team had shifted over to working on a next-gen Battlefield title, while a smaller "core group" would: "continue on what's next for Need for Speed."

Almost a year ago, Criterion and EA celebrated the Need for Speed franchise's thirtieth anniversary—a press release focused mainly on roadmapped content for Need for Speed Unbound (2022). The game was updated with a final chunk of post-release content last November. Eurogamer took it upon themselves to investigate Criterion's current internal formation, given that support duties have concluded on the NFS Unbound project. The online publication received a response from EA's top-most Battlefield developer. Zampella said in a statement to Eurogamer: "the Need for Speed team at Criterion are joining their colleagues working on Battlefield...As a company, it was important to us to take the last year to listen to our Need for Speed community and use their feedback to create content for Unbound...With an increased understanding of what our players want in a Need for Speed experience, we plan to bring the franchise back in new and interesting ways."