The Rise and Fall of EA Blackbox Studios (feat. KuruHS & DustinEden) 

Hey there , If I missed some details do let me know in the comments and I will try and add it to this post!

Thanks for having me! :)

That guy narrating the Prostreet segment has a nice voice. He should consider opening up a RU-vid channel

Imagine if blackbox had longer development time for their games..man ea really sucks the life out of everyone.

What I have always liked about Need for Speed games is how the developers were never afraid to try new stuff. From a linear tuner game of NFSU, to an open world police chase game of Most Wanted, to an almost simulator like game of NFS shift, to a cinematic story driven game of The Run.

Its crazy how they put mw and carbon together in a year, they have such unique atmospheres, from the music to the UI to the visuals and the best engine sounds in NFS to day

I'm grew up with Black Box's NFS games especially playing those games on PS2. Need For Speed Underground 2 still remains my favourite NFS game besides Most Wanted 2005. Ah, nostalgia, thank you EA Black Box.

To be honest, if Carbon didn't get the shorter end of the stick it could've been a far bigger game and perhaps better selling game. Especially considering there's bit of cut content that didn't make it into the game as well as the plenty amount of opportunities to expand the game. But at the end of the day, even if I might be blinded by nostalgia, Need for Speed games from the Black Box era will always hold a certain place in my heart with Carbon and UG2 being my favorites.

Imagine if Black Box didn't have to rush Prostreet out the door. It was without a doubt the NFS game that held up the best in terms of culture and the car scene.

Blackbox made the best Need for Speed games: Underground 1/2, Most Wanted, Carbon Ghost Games showed the most promise and respect for the fans with Need for Speed 2015 and NFS: Heat Criterion made Need for Burnout.

one more thing abt the bugs around ProStreet is that some cars perform alot worst than the others when upgrading them like in some cars, upgrading Suspension, Tires, and/or Transmission somehow makes them slower/perform alot worst than be4 so this is why when some of recommended builds actually requires you to actively downgrade those parts (install said parts, tune them to your liking, & downgrade them to lv1/stock afterwards) and not to mentioned that some cars are overly op for a certain class so much that they're an absolute meta for that class (997 GT2 on Speed, Camaro & Supra on Drag, RX7 on Drift, 997 GT3 RS & S3 on Grip, and so on)

it sucks because nfs Heat was a breath of fresh air. it let us tune our cars how we want to. no more force drifting like payback and 2015. the customization was great, they removed the micro transaction upgrades of payback and put regular upgrades instead, they did so much right in that game, it sucks EA didnt like Ghost removing micro transactions and closed them down. honestly the best NFS in over a decade

NFS Most Wanted and Carbon are by far my favourite NFS games of the Franchise, no debate whatsoever. ☯️

and one more corrections Miata does exist on the PAL ver of Underground 2, the NTSC exclusive cars are those two Honda cars (Civic Si (EM1) & RSX Type-S (DC5)) and interestingly enough, the japanese ver of the game named Sha-Do had PAL cars instead despite being NTSC (Opel/Vauxhall Corsa & Peugeot 106 GTi)

One thing that I will say as one of the few fans Undercover has, is that its soundtrack is one of the best I have ever heard. It gives off a very somber/gloomy vibe most of the time, but also really hypes itself up when it needs to.

I have no idea how I got here, but I sure am glad to be here now. I love the thoughts and research on the studios and how every game came to be and what it's all about. That Kuru and Pro Street guy would make a great duo! My two favorite childhood games were Pro Street and Carbon on the Wii, I didn't have much back then haha! Very well made video man, I really enjoyed it.

Copying timestamps to comments for convenience, thanks Dove ♥ 00:00 Introduction 01:31 NFS Hot Pursuit 2 04:09 NFS Underground 08:36 NFS Underground 2 15:19 NFS Most Wanted 20:44 NFS Carbon 27:00 NFS Pro Street 34:29 NFS Undercover 38:26 NFS World 40:35 NFS The Run 43:16 NFS Mods 45:36 Conclusion and Outro

Very well made video. Eden and Kuru knowing NFS games so well this came out great.

Oh boi that 7 lap race caused alot of rage back in the day 😩

21:00 Wait,wait,wait!I remember watching Raycevick's retrospective about NFS Carbon.There he said that the game sold over 8.5 million copies worldwide and he even showed Ea's revenues for 2006.Those 3.2 million units are copies sold in the USA only.

Apart from the look of the Frostbite engine looking good, the cars in The Run also felt heavier than in any other NFS game and also gave a more realisitic vibe in addition to the cinematics.

Undercover also had an enormous issue running on contemporary hardware, I remember my uncle who was way into PCs at the time tell me that it even ran horribly on PCs with 8GB RAM at release (2009!) Awesome video though!

glad to see you branch out into quality documentary content, great job man !!

Amazing video, thanks for putting in so much work on it.

Very in depth and yet short kept video with all needed information. Even providing mod infos to fix the games flaws. 😍 10/10 Video 👍

Certainly made my midnight, love the video it was good chilling back and reminiscing about bbx as well as their unfortunate fate as to which I never knew they renamed themselves before they went under so that's a nice trivia. All in all though solid video Dove! 👍

Great content as always Keep up the good work 💪

I actually like that underground 2 have no fast travel Imao, it make the player to better discover the city and interact with the environment

Lovely video. Well put together.

Awesome video DoVe!

that so cool you got Kuru involved in the video!

It was such a nice video and i got tears actually seeing old games again. Golden era wont be forgotten, black box always has a place in my heart. Btw my fav game of all time from black box is pro street.

Carbon was my first and favourite entry in the series when i first started collecting ps2 games in 2012. about this time last year i challenged myself to beat the game with drift physics enabled via extra options in a stock rx8 that i had modded to look like an ae86. every race was a battle against the ruberband until darius in the canyon. there he drove consitently on the same route without budging, like a cart on a track. it was hard to pass him as he had a very clean racing line but eventually i managed to overtake him on the outside inside the tunnel before iut turns right and he goes for the inside. now i can overtake him on the 3rd turn fairly consistently.

Well researched, and fantastic made Video! Great Work! 💪

Such a good video, loved it. NFS is my childhood and I played from underground up to carbon then skipped a few until the newer titles like NFS world, Hot Pursuit and NFS 2015 onwards. Would love to see a review of post black box games like Pursuit 2010 onwards.

I’m playing this game over right now and love everything about this game. The snoop dog song is the only song that plays in the background. Love it. Need for Speed Underground 2

32:52 hah, thanks for the mention there

great video, enjoyed a lot

What an amazing and well made video. I used it as kind of an audiobook while cooking dinner today and it was such a joyful rise down memory Lane. NFS was my childhood and so these videos fill my heart to the brim. Thank you to everyone involved!

Great video Dove!

i remember that pontiac gto from pro street on the nintendo ds port being easily able to push far past 430 kmh on the speed trap missions when u were there struggling to see the map and the rubberbanding was insane on these missions

Need for Speed Carbon was short, certainly. But those Canyon duels, in which you can't crutch on nitrous or speedbreaker. Especially if you sentenced yourself to a muscle car, which really is more a boat on wheels in how it handles. Plus the amazing OST playing during them. Those Canyon duels are the most memorable racing event in the Black Box era and I'm hoping we some day get something like that again. Followed by speed challenges and top speed runs in Pro Street.

congrats on the 2k views on your board, the nice amount of likes and good amount of comments

Well researched video, hope it'll go mini viral. See you in the next stream my bosnian-boi

Am I the only one who just loves the camera in NFS Run.. It connects the player so well to the onscreen action.. Makes you feel like you are really in the game I believe Driveclub is the only other game I know with a similar camera system

Carbon was the best especially with mechanics and polish. Your own crew, wingman, crew territory, all fire. Also pro street being a track game means that pretty much any car can be modified to do almost anything so you can have a BMW M3 with better track times than a Porsche.

Hot Pursuit 2 on PS2 is still my favorite NFS. There hasn’t been an NFS nearly as fun as that one. But if we’re talking my favorite racing game in general, that pick would be Midnight Club 3.

Thank you EA for wasting Criterion's time with the turd that's BF:2042, very cool!

Love the SR2 pause menu song in the back lol

Even though Carbon is short and was sold less in my opinion it was still a better game, its my personal favorite.

Great video❤️

1k subs, and this quality of video you will be at 10k very soon mark my words

Iam feel so fortunate to be grown up right when Underground hit the market after getting my first PC. Back in school the boys werent talking about anything else. Underground2 with its open map was revolutionary in my eyes. I also like how the next games deviated from that formula, The UG- series, MostWanted and ProStreet couldnt have been more different. I still play all these games today ( with mods of course) and only Heat managed to get me thinking about buying a modern NfS title...

I had a challenger in pro street that was uncontrollable with any suspension tune. It was prone to raising on to its back bumper when shifted into its highest gear and rolling to the passenger side. run,crash,tune,repeat. still my favorite nfs

Nice one !

Huge video, waited for a long time, also remember being in the streams keep it up pigeon!

I don't mind the lack of fast traveling in Underground 2. Fast travel can feel like you're just rushing through the game, not simply enjoying it. For the most part, I didn't use fast travel in Most Wanted as well and I've probably 40-50 playthroughs.

2002 through 2006 were the prime years of NFS. Underground 2 with its introduction of free roam and heavy customization, Most Wanted with the heavy dose of police pursuits in a open world setting. Carbon with its auto sculpt feature. Most people either will say HP2 or UG2 or MW. Most Wanted because of the progression of the story. It was lengthy yes but the pursuit system is what makes it unique and plays a role for the game. Yeah other NFS has its memories but short well lived like Undercover…

My first experience playing need for speed was NFS Hot Pursuit 2 for the pc. After that, I was in love and hooked on NFS

i really enjoyed underground 2/Most Wanted and carbon , as a kid we played with friends and it was a great time

Yo plz make more type of vids I loved it and subbed

BlackBox, thanks to shaping my childhood especially the Underground, Most Wanted, and Carbon with ProStreet Era~

For 11:58, I kept multiple cars, I reserved my original starter car for the sponsor star rating while I used the other cars, customized them the way I want to and use them to win races.

It’s funny you grew up with the Games from my Teens I grew up with All of them even down to the PS1 versions. High Stakes being my Personal Favorite of the Series. Great video I wish you would do the Beginning of the series But I understand that you started during its peak year.

36:43 god i remember this bug when i was playing this game, if you land correctly (or jankyly if thats a word) on to the cones/pylons you can absolutely get stratospheric air times for some reason (reminds me of Arma 3 physics lol), and its most likely what the AI did earlier when he passed you in the most Fast and Furious way possible.

Man, the Most Wanted section could have gotten more content such as... idk public opinions on handling, or the length of the game, how it felt to wreck public and private property to shake the cops. Damn

Hah, I hated (and still hate) the Fast and Furious movies, I didn't like "street" anything, so I checked out completely from the NFS games at that time, only coming back to Most Wanted but I was 17 already, so bought a new 360 when they came out with my first job and played the demo, loved it, so I got the game. Before that, I had played the 90's games in friend's PCs mostly, and liked them, but once the Gran Turismo games started coming out, I was done with arcade racers for a long time. Looking back now, there were some great games I missed that I managed to either play the PC version or emulate an older console to play, some of these NFS games can actually be a blast.

I loved Undercover so much as a kid when it came out.

Exactly the issues you highlighted about Underground were also issues I had with both titles. I beat 1 but never completed 2 before NFSMW came out, and after that, I just forgot about it tbh. I actually got more enjoyment from Hot Pursuit II over both Underground games. It was the first NFS game I beat 100% though so that may be a bit of nostalgia/bias. When I was younger and much less experienced, the cops in NFSMW were hellacious. Nowadays it's Haha speedbreaker + NOS goes brrr NFSMW was by far my favorite NFS game regardless though HP2 second.

Electronic Farts presents Need For Stonks.

Carbon will always be the best in my opinion.

In my option most wanted was the best i still go back and replay it from time to time

even the tunes for underground was 🔥

You deserve more recognition man, it's clear you put a lot of work into these videos.

Nobody is gonna mention that Midnight Club, Forza, etc. all made better games than NFS for a long enough time that NFS is currently a retro franchise and not a modern one.

2000s is the the golden era of racing games and NFS was in another level

Underground 1&2, Most Wanted and Carbon get played trough every once in a while. U2 is my favorite thou.

The ProStreet was the only NFS I personally did not finish, where on game progress, the road suddenly became so slippery, like you are driving on butter. I just finally gaive this up.

well done

good stuff

36:43 *jump jack sound effect*

this is the first time I realized the react team sessions rx7 was in nfs underground, holy moly

Prostreet having the Texas World Speedway and an expy of Watkins Glen in the form of the Nevada Highway (Grip layout) suddenly makes sense. A shame that a NASCAR racecar wasn't included as a secret vehicle that would've been made difficult to unlock.

Although i loved MW'05 BUT i loved CARBON too...would love to play it again someday for sure.

Small correction at 42:08. This game had 30 Autolog levels on PC. On consoles it was increased to 40, because till 2013 Black Box were still working on updates and DLCs only for the consoles just like what Criterion did for the OG NFS HP 2010. But sadly they didn't finish it in time, because they added also new Tier levels and exclusive Weekly Multiplayer playlists that they were available for a really short time and so little amount of people have these cars like: Tier 5 Audi Quattro 20V, Tier 6 Aston Martin V12 Vantage, Tier 5 Dodge Challenger SRT8, Tier 6 Dodge Charger R/T Tier 6 (one of the Tier 6 muscle cars that we didn't get for PC sadly), Tier 6 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, Tier 6 Ford Shelby GT500 SuperSnake, Tier 5 Mazda MX-5 NC, Tier 6 Porsche 911 GT2 993. And obviously the addon exclusive Challenge Series and cars from the Italian pack in the 1.1 update for the consoles which the PC version of 1.1 got only bug fixes but the consoles got more paid DLC which is a shame for the PC users. Consoles got cars like Alfa Romeo 8C, Lancia Delta Integrale HF, Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera and Diablo SV, Maserati MC12 and Gran Turismo MC Stradale. Also they changed the Aventador's sound too from the PC version.

22:49 Meme continuation, Nice.

I love how each nfs game has a different theme to it nfs underground 1 and 2 are comic themed but nfs mw feels like a movie

According to Wikipedia: NFS UG 2 sold 11 million copies & NFS Carbon sold 3.2 million copies in the US only . I read somewhere that Carbon sold around 9 to 10 million copies.

bro, nfs world was and still is one of my all-time favourite games, might just be nostalgia but playing it rn still feels like im a kid getting excited just booting it up

when I was younger the magazine missions used to make me feel a certain type of way

First series of Midnight Club released in 2000 just before The fast and the furious released

We'll most likely never see a game company like EA Black Box who put so much detail and effort into the NFS titles. Mainly the customization, there were other games that had good customization but I feel like EA Black Box were the only company to put so much detail into customization, even if it did look ridiculous. Times sure change, considering on how licensing cost are, and with certain demands that must be met, We'll most likely never get to see a racing game that levels up with Black Boxs' customization. But that's just me.

Saints Row music at 4:20 love it

The plot: car wrecks The gameplay: car can't be wrecked

Long time fan of NFS from played them trough my childhood/Teenage years underground to Carbon. Good classic games. And tbh Heat is pretty good to.

Carbon was my first ever nfs game. It tooked my a good while to beat Darius cause he would always be on top in ths canyon duel. It took me a while to realized that I need to beat him with a tuner car. Exotic couldn't turn well in tight corners, and I wasn't good with the muscle cars

I still think Need For Speed would have held it‘s quality longer if it stayed in the hands of EA Seattle and EA Canada, there was so much more passion for cars in NFS 3 HP, NFS Porsche or NFS High Stakes.

Pro Street was so great and underrated. love this game.

I played Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 for 3 days with a few hours of sleep! I was so addicted!

Now that i think about most wanted story. The start is already crazy. You used an actual race car not for the street to race against highly tuned sports car and muscle car