Electronic Arts is not losing any time with Need For Speed Shift – the publishers have announced that the racing game will be released on September 18, 2009 in the UK, but said nothing about release dates in other regions. We do believe, though, that they will release the new NFS at about the same time as in the UK.

“With Need for Speed Shift, we set out to create a racing game that pushes the genre and delivers something never before seen in a Need for Speed title,” said Patrick Soderlund, Senior Vice President at EA Games Europe. “By focusing on the driver’s experience through the first-person view, we are able to capture the high-speed intensity and gripping emotions of racing.”

From what we’ve seen until now, NFS Shift indeed looks great and it might even become the best looking racing game ever. Hopefully the same could be said about the gameplay – and we have reasons to believe that it will rock, since the game is being developed by Slightly Mad Studios in collaboration with Black Box and Patrick Soderlund and they worked on GT Legends and GTR 2, too. We’ll find out more this September.