SHIFT Was Originally Planned as ProStreet 2
Did you know that Need For Speed: SHIFT wasn't always called that? No? Well, now you know. Originally, Еlectronic Аrts planned to brand it as a sequel to Need For Speed: ProStreet.
. The lead designer of SHIFT told us that the game was originally a direct sequel to ProStreet and that EA wanted cops.
Responding to a question from GamerZines, the lead designer of SHIFT, Andy Tudor (Andy Tudor) explains:
Yes. It (SHIFT) really did start out as ProStreet 2.
You'll see obvious references: for example, we have a track in Tokyo, though a bit more elaborate, there are no balloons or anything like that here.
The thing about ProStreet is that they couldn't just jump straight from street racing to track competition, it would have annoyed a lot of people.
So ProStreet was a kind of first stage of mixing directions - street racing culture, and what we (EA) always wanted to get to.
We had a few arguments, well, you know - "add police, add nitro". To which we just said: "Yeah, right! We'll do everything properly, won't we?" And we did. SHIFT is the game we always wanted to create, it's just that it all started under a different name.
Although SHIFT is a debut for Slightly Mad Studios, most of its team had already worked on a series of PC racing simulators, which led to speculation that SHIFT was being prepared as a sequel to those very simulators, but certainly not as a sequel to the Need For Speed series.
Unlike its arcade predecessors, Need For Speed: SHIFT focuses on sim racing, showing extremely impressive physics and a multi-layered handling model that makes the game accessible to both hardcore and casual gamers.
Source: NFSWORLD