EA is real sorry it called that guy 'milkshake brain'

An image showing a young man leaning against a tuned-up car.

(Image credit: EA)

After a raucous spate of now-deleted tweets, the official Need For Speed Twitter account has woken up with a head full of regrets. After insulting a fan who criticised the upcoming Need For Speed: Unbound, the account has posted an official apology and promised to do better, which presumably means it won't call someone "milkshake brain" ever again.

We admit we got a bit caught up in the hype for launch and some of our recent social media replies crossed the line. To those fans we upset, we apologize. We will do better. See you here next week.November 23, 2022

The exchange that prompted the apology took place last Monday, after a fan complained about an offer for Need For Speed: Unbound that gave players who pre-ordered 3 days' early access to the game. The NFS Twitter account responded in a, ah, less-than-decorous way, telling the fan to "cry about it bro or buy regular price idc," before eventually declaring "I'm not reading all that, sorry that happened to you or congratulations".

This "edgy" EA social media employee is embarrassing...HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED ANYTHING?! pic.twitter.com/taVMVfoG3uNovember 22, 2022

Not exactly Public Relations 101. You'll notice that these tweets only exist in the form of screenshots. That's because, at some point between the argument and the apology, the offending posts from the NFS account were deleted. Probably for the best, but this being the internet, people saved backups almost as soon as the tweets went live.

It's not clear if the operator of the NFS Twitter page thought they were being endearingly cheeky, or if they were just fed up ministering to fan complaints and decided to go out in a blaze of glory. Either way, I can't imagine that exhorting a displeased potential buyer to "cry about it bro" is going to win any customer service awards in the near future.

Need For Speed: Unbound releases next week on Steam, the EA App (née Origin), and the Epic Games Store. It looks alright in gameplay we've seen so far, although those cars definitely seem to handle like toys, which could displease the racing purists out there. They look like toys, too, but that's less of a problem since you can turn off the sparkly effects if they're too "anime" for you. I wouldn't do that, though. Seems like a milkshake brain move.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.