Initially established in 2011 as EA Gothenburg, it was reported that the studio would focus on the development of games using the Frostbite game engine and was developing a game in the
Need for Speed franchise. According to the CVs of employees, much of the studio's staff had worked previously on major racing titles, including
Forza Horizon,
Need for Speed: The Run,
Project Gotham Racing and
Race Pro. On 22 October 2012, the series' main developer at the time, Criterion Games, confirmed that EA Gothenburg was working on a title in the
Need for Speed franchise, but did not reveal the level of involvement or when the title would be released. EA Gothenburg was re-branded as Ghost Games as of 15 November 2012. Ghost's website went live at the same time and called for potential staff to apply for a range of open positions. Ghost is headed up by former DICE executive producer Marcus Nilsson, who previously led development on games including
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat,
Battlefield 2142 and
Shift 2: Unleashed. EA confirmed the next title in the
Need for Speed series,
Need for Speed Rivals, with a teaser trailer on 23 May 2013, following marketing material teasers days before. It was also confirmed that the game was in development at EA's Ghost Games studio in partnership with Criterion Games and that Ghost Games would become the main developer of all future installments in the
Need for Speed franchise starting from 2013. At the time, 80% of British developer Criterion Games staff moved to Ghost Games UK to help grow the studio. The game was released on 19 November 2013. On 1 February 2014, multiple sources confirmed that studio-wide layoffs had occurred at Ghost Games UK. The same sources also confirmed that an unannounced
Need for Speed title had been put on hold. Developers working with the studio under contract were immediately let go, while full-time employees were told to either take severance pay and leave the company or to join the team working on
Visceral Games'
Battlefield spinoff,
Battlefield Hardline, due for release the following year. In 2014, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson announced that there would not be a new
Need for Speed game that year, making it the first year since 2001 that a
Need for Speed game was not released. Ghost Games revealed their next game in the franchise on 21 May 2015, through a teaser trailer. The game, titled
Need for Speed, was a formal reboot of the
Need for Speed franchise. The game released on 3 November 2015 and received mixed reviews. As of January 2016, Ghost Games had begun development on the next
Need for Speed game to be released in 2017.
Electronic Arts later confirmed in their January 2017 earnings call that the next game in the franchise was in development and was set to be launched during EA's fiscal year 2018 (Comprising from April 2017 to March 2018). On 2 June 2017, EA and Ghost Games revealed
Need for Speed Payback. The game released worldwide on 10 November 2017, and unlike its predecessor, had a strong focus on offline singleplayer gameplay. On 5 February 2019, EA CFO and COO Blake Jorgensen confirmed during the company's Q3 FY19 Financial Results Meeting that the publisher was planning on delivering a new entry in the
Need for Speed series. The game is expected to be released before the end of March 2020. On 14 August, it was announced the game will be titled
Need for Speed Heat and is scheduled to be released on 8 November 2019. EA announced in February 2020 that it planned to move core development duties of the
Need for Speed series back to Criterion Games, and make Ghost Games an engineering support studio across all of EA, renaming the studio back to EA Gothenburg once government approvals had cleared. This included a reduction in staff, with those familiar with EA's core technology such as the Frostbite engine to remain at the studio, and assigning the other creative staff from Ghost Games elsewhere within EA where possible. ==Games developed==