page_title: Need for Speed: Undercover
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Need for Speed: Undercover / Development
caption_attribution_description: NFS Undercover booth-babes of Igromir 2008
context_page_description: Need for Speed: Undercover is a 2008 racing video game, and the twelfth installment in the Need for Speed series. Developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts, it was released on November 18, 2008, for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and a number of mobile phone platforms; an edition of the game for iOS was later released on April 27, 2009. The game sees players conducting illegal street races within the fictional Tri-City Area, with the main mode's story focused on the player operating as an undercover police officer to investigate links between a criminal syndicate, stolen cars, and street racers.
  Gameplay operates on the same manner as previous entries such as Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: Carbon, now including a larger selection of licensed real-world cars, & an RPG-styled system in the game's main mode. Upon its release, the game received mixed reviews, many of which criticised the game's difficulty setting and repetitive elements, with some editions receiving lower scores due to severe issues.
context_section_description: Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello stated that the previous release in the series (ProStreet) was only "an okay game...[and was] not good" and that Undercover would "be a much better game". He stated Undercover would have a considerably longer development cycle than its predecessors because the Need for Speed development team had been split up into two teams, both of which would work on a "two-year" development cycle with future titles, alternating releases between them. Riccitiello stated he was "torturing" the development team with a tight development cycle in the past. "When this change was implemented in mid-summer 2007, one team started working on Undercover (giving it only a 16.5 month development cycle), while the other team (that finished ProStreet) would start working on the next title." Riccitiello also stated Undercover took inspiration from action films such as The Transporter, with a large embedded narrative.
  Frank Gibeau, President of the EA Games label, stated during development that due to the fact that the sales of ProStreet didn't live up to EA's hopes for the game, the Need for Speed franchise would go back to its roots (although Undercover was already being developed before ProStreet). "John Doyle (Developer at EA Black Box) said that Undercover would feature a brand new game mechanic and a 'Most Wanted-ish' sandbox style of gameplay." The game was also provided with an all new damage system. Andy Blackmore (Senior Vehicle Concept Artist at EA) explained how one of the Porsche cars that was "conceptualized" in the game was then brought to life for the game from a brief description to being approved by Porsche.
  
  A few days before Undercover's release, EA revealed a few plot details. A video was uploaded that showed the player evading capture from the Tri-City Police Department (TCPD).
caption: Promotion at IgroMir 2008
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