Need for Speed: Most Wanted Vita developed by Criterion, includes extra content

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is coming to PS Vita. And surprisingly, the open world racer is left largely intact in its transition to the handhelds. Instead of giving porting duties to an external studio, developer Criterion Games is actually working on the Vita version in-house--ensuring that even the Vita version lives up to the team's standards.

"It looked like the machine was going to be capable of delivering what we wanted to do. And the way that we work is very iterative--build, play, change, build, play, change--that's how we work. When you go external it generally only works when you’ve got a finished game, otherwise there are too many moving parts," producer Matt Webster said.

The Vita version of the game doesn't look shabby

The goal for the PS Vita version of the game was to "make the same game" as the console game. "As much as we possibly could, we wanted to deliver all the great things about the console version of the game: an open world, freedom, choice, variety, highly connected," Webster said on the PlayStation.Blog. Of course, some compromises had to be made. While it is largely the same game, "traffic density and number of players online" has been affected in the handheld version.

Surprisingly, the Vita version of the game actually has additional content over its console brethren--and it's not gimmicky content that arbitrarily uses the Vita hardware. Instead, there are some exclusive races and events for Vita users to discover. Additionally, the game will feature some cross-play with the PS3 version of the game: "Any Speed Points you earn in SP also drive your MP progression, and that's true when you play the game on PS Vita too," Webster described. "Anything you earn on PS Vita carries across to the console version. It's a unified scoring system."

Need for Speed: Most Wanted will be available on PS3 and Vita on October 30th. And while there is cross-play, EA is not supporting cross-buy, meaning you'll have to buy both versions of the game if you want to take advantage of the game's cross-platform functionality.