Manual Shifting Is Coming To Need For Speed

Need For Speed has received mixed reactions ever since it catapulted onto consoles last year. There’s no denying it’s gorgeous to look at, but most gamers seem to find the odd handling and lack of manual shifting to be frustrating. Well it looks like EA is about to fix one of those issues.

On a teaser video released on its Facebook page, a short video focuses on the speedometer with a newly added gear indicator. As the car accelerates, it smashes into the limiter before upshifting, seemingly indicating that the shift was under the control of the user. The real kicker, though, is that the video’s file name is ‘PC_Reveal_Manual’ - doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together here.

The intriguing part of the file name, however, is ‘PC’. As yet, we only have a ‘Spring 2016’ release date for the PC version of Need For Speed, which was held back to make the most of the extra power available to PC gamers. The full reveal will be tomorrow (Thursday 11 February), so can we expect a PC release date bundled in with the manual announcement?

If that is the case, tomorrow is a huge day for Need For Speed fans. EA just has to hope that its core audience hasn’t already moved on.