Need For Speed Unbound

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X
Genre: Racing
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Criterion
Release Date: Dec. 2, 2022

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'Need for Speed Unbound' Celebrates Franchise's 30th Anniversary With 2024 Content Roadmap

by Rainier on Feb. 20, 2024 @ 11:16 a.m. PST

Need For Speed Unbound puts players in the driver seat of their own street racing fantasy as they outsmart cops and prove they have what it takes to win The Grand, Lakeshore's ultimate street racing challenge.

Need For Speed Unbound features an all-new, unique visual style blending elements of street art with the most realistic looking cars in the franchise’s history. The innovative single player campaign delivers thrills and consequences through an immersive narrative that engages players in the city of Lakeshore as they race, collect, upgrade, and customize the world's hottest performance cars on their way to the top of the scene.

Need For Speed Unbound challenges the conventions of the racing genre and ups the ante by introducing true consequence with impactful risk and reward for every race, decision and side bet made. Players uncover the world of Lakeshore when a robbery at a family auto-shop tears two friends apart and sets a rookie racer on a journey to win the ultimate street race and reclaim the priceless car that was stolen from them.

Need For Speed Unbound is built for the new generation of technology and will feature 4K resolution at 60 FPS for the first time in the series.

Surprise! We're still here, and not just here - we have a whole year's worth of content coming to you! NFS turns 30 this year, and with that huge legacy, we couldn’t stand idle. However, this year will be a bit different from the previous one.

Because here’s the thing - the NFS legacy signifies different things to each and every one of you. Some of you were there at the start of it all on Road and Track. Some of you will remember taking on the Eastsiders in Olympic City or smashing your way through the Blacklist in Rockport. Or you might have started playing more recently. Hustling by day and risking it all by night in Palm City. No matter your memory, we all have a shared love of NFS, and we want to build new memories over the next 12 months.

But, we’ll be honest and admit we can’t build everything everyone wants right now, but we can decide together what NFS should be in the future.

Our vision is that through our second year of live service, you can, for the first time, begin to play the ultimate NFS experience in one place. Your feedback and gameplay will help shape the future of this iconic franchise. As you play, we will be listening, observing and reacting to the things you want to see and those you don’t. It’s an approach that we’re calling Kaizen.

Kaizen is a Japanese term that means change for better or continuous improvement. We feel this really encapsulates what we want to do with NFS, and we want to make you, our players and fans, a key part of it too.

So how are we doing this?


Evolving Volumes

We’re committing to adding four new volumes of content in the next year, each launching every few months. We aim to deliver some exciting themed updates, with at least one new major mode added to each volume. We will also continue to build on and evolve with each time. Adding more events, more challenges, new content, Ranks to earn, and new progression to chase. We will deliver at least two new fully customizable cars as part of the Speed Pass. And when we say cars, we mean cars in the NFS sense, like no one else creates. We aren’t just talking base models here and stock paint there; we are talking cars that come with fully customizable body kits with a myriad of interchangeable parts so you can tweak your ride just the way you want it.

Most Requested Bug Fixes and Improvements

We really want to be fixing and focusing on the things that you all care about most (like adding realistic driving effects last December), but as a small team, we need to prioritize where we spend our time, and it will always focus on what we feel is best for you all. Every improvement we try to make is a trade-off between something new and something different. So we’ll be closely monitoring your comments and feedback and coming to you with regular communications about what we’re learning along the way.

Premium Speed Pass*

Starting with Volume 6, we are introducing an all-new premium track to the Speed Pass that will grant you instant access to one of our hot new vehicles and unlock the ability to earn all its deep customisation content. It also includes custom versions of the vehicle, and it’s where you can find our hottest new customisation options each season. Refining our Speed Pass this way is how we can keep delivering unique new content and gameplay to you through a more simplified approach. If that’s not your thing, though, we will still be offering a free track of the Speed Pass with new vehicles and customizations for you to enjoy.

Always Be Learning

We see this as a year to test and learn and understand what works best for you. Committing to an extended Unbound live service allows us to really build on feedback, which we’ll be gathering in a few ways. We’re working closely with a dedicated Player Council - a great bunch of NFS influencers, core community members, and players to understand what’s important to them and their communities. We’ll be increasing the amount of telemetry we track from the games to better understand through gameplay data what’s working for you. And we’ll look to close the feedback loop by being as transparent as possible with you, letting you know what we’ve heard and what we can and can’t do.

Ok, you made it! Closing time. We hope more than ever that all fans of NFS can come join us as we continue to deliver updates to NFS Unbound.  We might just have some nice surprises along the way as we take a tongue-in-cheek look back in the rearview before we drop a gear and power forward into the future together, testing, refining and constantly improving along the way!

*Requires Need for Speed Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates. Requires gameplay to unlock. You must log in before the end of Volume 6 to claim your reward. Failure to log in and claim during this period will result in forfeiting the reward.

This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible.

Need For Speed Unbound is available for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC (EA app, Origin, Steam and Epic Game Store).


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