No Need for Speed Underground 3 has been announced. EA has not confirmed one in any official material we could find, and the most recent reporting, dated July 2026, says Criterion is focused on Battlefield. That makes a near-term Underground release look unlikely. Whether EA will ever make a third Underground game cannot be settled either way until EA says something specific about it.
What has been said, and by whom
The table below lists every statement we could check that bears on the franchise’s future. None of them names Underground 3, and each should be read for what it actually covers.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered (Nintendo Switch) | $37.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
|
Need for Speed Heat | $29.69 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
|
Need for Speed Payback - XBOX One | $16.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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| Source | Date | What it says | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|---|
| EA’s official Need for Speed franchise page | Page as reviewed; visible news includes 2024 items | Promotes Need for Speed Unbound and lists existing franchise titles. Its visible news is Unbound updates. | No Underground 3 announcement appears on this page. That is a statement about this page, not proof that no announcement exists elsewhere. |
| EA community administrator EA_David, in an EA Forums announcement about older NFS titles | 2021 | “we are now shifting gears to focus on the future of Need for Speed.” | A general commitment to the franchise’s future. It does not promise a specific sequel. |
| EA’s “NFS Unbound — Community Feedback & Wishlist” document | January 2023 | Says its goal is to help Criterion with Unbound updates and “any future NFS games they may develop.” | Explicitly hypothetical. It describes feedback gathering, not a project in development. |
| Criterion executive Rebecka Coutaz, as quoted in GameSpot’s report | July 14, 2026, at a Criterion 30th anniversary event | “We are solely focused on Battlefield.” Also: “We’re not here to talk about the past.” | Describes where the studio’s attention is. GameSpot quotes these lines from an interview, and neither line addresses an Underground sequel. |
| ComicBook.com’s report | July 9, 2026 | Reports that Criterion is “solely focused” on Battlefield and reads this as meaning a new NFS game is not in active development. | Its longer-term release forecast is the outlet’s own inference. It is not an EA commitment or a timetable. |
Why “ever” cannot be answered definitively
The question has two parts, and the evidence answers only one of them. The near-term part is answerable: nothing official points to an Underground release, and the most recent studio statements point elsewhere. The “ever” part is not answerable from current material. EA has never said the Underground line is finished, and it has also never said a third game is coming. Reports that a franchise is not in active development describe a moment, not a permanent decision.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Be cautious with headlines that present the July 2026 reporting as final. The quotes come from one interview and were relayed secondhand, and the ComicBook.com forecast is interpretation. Treat both as evidence of current priorities, not as a cancellation.
#1 Best Overall
- CROSS-PLATFORM MULTIPLATER AND AUTOLOG: Bolt down the winding Seacrest County roads headfirst in racing that is socially competitive at its core, the ground-breaking Autolog connects you and your friends in head-to-head pursuits and races and instinctively delivers challenges based on your friends' activities, this highly dynamic system is fuelled by friendly competition and is now supported with cross-platform sync and new multiplayer gameplay so that you can race each other no matter what platform you are on
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What would change the answer
A genuine answer would come from one of the following, in roughly this order of reliability:
- An official EA newsroom or Need for Speed page post that names a new project, even without a release date.
- A statement from Criterion or EA that specifically mentions Underground, rather than the franchise in general.
- A dated, named announcement with platforms and a release window. Until one exists, treat any date circulating online as speculation.
Until one of these appears, the most accurate answer to “will there ever be” is that EA has not ruled it out and has not committed to it.
Quick Recap
Rank #3
- Play through an explosive adventure as three distinct characters united by one common goal: revenge.
- Endlessly fine-tune your performance through each of the five distinct car classes (Race, Drift, Off-Road, Drag, and Runner).
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Rank #2
- NFS Heat.
- brand: Electronic Arts
- manufacturer: Electronic Arts
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
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