For quite a while (ahem, one week...) Need For Speed 2015 appears to have many features purists have been longing for: An open world setting in city streets, extensive car customisation, a storyline in career mode, an enhanced Frostbite graphics engine to display everything in stunning detail and more which is yet to be announced. However, with EA publishing the game, there has to be a catch somewhere and Gamespot is first in line to point it out - the revamped racing game will require an internet connection in order to be played. As much as EA tries to convince potential customers that this idea will provide benefits to the player, the general consensus has been predominantly unfavourable, so let's take a closer look at what this means.
The idea of having games which require an internet connection to play is nothing new, especially when it comes to free multiplayer games. With the 8th generation of consoles, it is becoming the norm to have this feature on full price titles through the use of Always-on DRM (Digital Rights Management). The main purpose of this feature is to prevent video game piracy, as pirated copies will not have a one-off code to grant access to any gameplay features.Ok, so many gamers have an internet connection when playing games so this should not be a big deal. Or should it? Well, if you encounter internet downtime when playing a game, even in single player mode, prepare to have you session disrupted. Even if a connection problem occurs from the server's end, your game will be rendered useless. If the release of SimCity (another EA game) is anything to go by, prepare to encounter some issues around the first few days of release.
The problems don't end after the cooling-off period, there is also the issue of longevity - One example I have in mind is an old Need For Speed game: the free 'World' MMO title. As you may recall, I posted about the servers going down back in April. That's one thing to bear in mind about Always-on DRM games; once the servers are taken down, you can never play the game again, even if you wish to play alone. Your investment will turn into nothing more than a message displaying the servers have been taken down. It begs the question "What is the point of spending more potentially wasted money on DLC?" After all, that will also be void after the servers have been taken down.
It feels like you are paying the retail price of £40-£50 (and you say goodbye to discounted second-hand copies) for a long-term rental thanks to Always-on DRM, the days of being able to own a game and the content on it for as long as you wish appears to be in the past. If you were to play Underground 2 today, approaching 11 years after its release, you can still access the same single player content you did back when it was released. In the case of Need For Speed, I strongly doubt you would be able to do so in less than half a decade. I am still excited for the release of NFS 2015, but it is a major factor to bear in mind.
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