For the first time in nearly a decade, Burnout creator Criterion Games has returned to work on the latest Need for Speed entry. While the British developer has been largely relegated to assisting with the latest Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield games over the past few years, Criterion’s previous work with Need for Speed was well received at the time and continues to be looked back upon as some of the series’s best modern entries, including 2010’s Hot Pursuit, 2012’s Most Wanted and 2013’s Rivals. The last of those three was a collaboration with the franchise’s new overseers, Ghost Games, who struggled to find an identity for the future of the series on their own, but finally managed to establish a solid foundation with 2019’s Heat, which introduced a high stakes day night cycle that rewarded players who completed races during the more dangerous nighttime, when a higher Heat meter means more aggressive cops would be giving their all to ensure you lose your newly-earned payday. Instead of starting from scratch, Criterion has decided to build upon what worked well in Heat, while also putting a stronger focus on style and creativity, mixing a cel-shaded art style with realistic graphics to create a Need for Speed that visually stands apart from its contemporaries. The incessantly-chatty characters do little to invest players in its unessential plot, but the smart gameplay additions and refinements, satisfying open world exploration and smooth performance makes Need for Speed Unbound another worthy addition to the series’ legacy of fun, arcadey racing games.
Once again, Need for Speed has put a uniquely large spotlight on the plot in its single player mode, forcing players to sit through several in-game days worth of character development before basic mechanics like upgrading a car’s performance or buying new cars is even an option. Set in the Chicago-inspired Lakeshore City, the tale primarily focuses around auto shop owner Rydell of Rydell’s Rydes and two of his employees, the unnamed player character and Yaz. After a robbery at the auto shop leaves the protagonist without a vehicle and tears their friendship with Yaz apart, the player must start from scratch and rise through the ranks of underground street racing to reclaim what’s theirs, alongside the help of their new streetwise manager, Tess. As the length of time between major plot beats increases, the amount of dialogue players must listen to after leaving the garage to start their day/night remains consistently high. This often leads to plenty of meaningless conversations that attempt to build relatability with Tess and Rydell, but mostly ends up serving as background noise while the cast discusses how they prepare for races or what they’re eating for dinner. Coupled alongside out-of-touch political ads that play on the radio and optional brief backstories on the racers you’ll be facing, the story never presents any clear motivation as to why players should be invested in these characters, and does little to impress with its attempts at either humor or drama.
After the lengthy prologue, players are introduced to Unbound’s new weekly calendar, which serves as a clear path towards the final goal of reaching the Grands. Each week consists of six days and six nights with unique events interspersed among them, followed by a three race Qualifier event on Saturday that requires a significant amount of cash and a car of the right tier in order to participate. Players will ultimately need one car at each of the four highest tiers to compete in the Grands, which smartly encourages spreading time and upgrades among various vehicles. Upgrading the garage will help provide access to better parts, but players are forced to keep their vehicles at or below a certain tier depending on their progress in the story, likely in order to ensure that races remain well-balanced. Fortunately, any earned money can also be spent on customizing the style of your car and character, with new clothing options and poses for the latter. In addition to the familiar but deep ways in which players can change the paint, wrap, horns and exhaust sounds of their car, Unbound grants even more freedom by offering swappable body kits, splitters and the ability to completely remove bumpers. Plus, Unbound’s signature vehicle effects, which play out various animations and sounds in real time as your car performs drifts, boosts and jumps, are gradually unlocked as challenges and events are completed, making the newest Need for Speed the most stylistic and customizable entry to date.
The core driving mechanics still feel fine-tuned without coming across as overly realistic, but Unbound’s fresh take on the turbo mechanic has turned out to be a welcome addition. In addition to the usual slowly-filling meter that builds up as racers play chicken with oncoming traffic, fly through the air or draft behind opponents, a tri-sectioned secondary boost meter will fill up separately based on how quickly players combo these different moves, which will rapidly start depleting as soon as the combo ends. A Level One boost meter may not seem all that different from the traditional turbo ability, but pulling off a long enough combo to reach the second or third level can have a huge impact on your position in the race. It may seem overwhelming to have to balance two meters at once while also racing at incredible speeds, but pulling off a Level Two boost after stalling during a long drift around a corner or a Level Three boost after successfully landing a huge jump can feel immensely satisfying, adding another layer of depth to the fun and polished driving mechanics.
Unbound’s approach to the day and night cycle is largely similar to how Heat introduced it, but some small refinements keep the stakes feeling high regardless of the time of day. As players partake in events, a Heat meter will gradually rise and introduce new kinds of cops that roam the city with various levels of speed and aggression. These cops can also interrupt races and immediately start chasing you as soon as one ends, keeping the adrenaline high as players are forced to outrun, hide or risk losing their newly-earned cash, which gets increasingly more difficult as new obstacles are introduced in higher tiers, like helicopters and spike traps. A helpful tracker at the bottom of the screen makes it easy to always know how many cops are actively hunting you, and the minimap can especially come in handy during the nighttime, allowing players to avoid an enemy’s line of sight and seek out gas stations to repair their damaged vehicle or safehouses to bank their cash. On the medium Challenging difficulty, we managed to escape a maximum Level 5 Heat without having to rely on new strategies, and only reached a critical amount of damage to our own vehicle on a few occasions without ever being damaged enough or busted to lose our potential earnings, so those who truly want to risk it all might consider bumping up to the hardest difficulty. That being said, the potential of losing our unbanked cash at any given moment kept the tensions high at night when the rewards are higher, helping preserve that same sense of risk and reward that the previous game excelled at.
The meetups spread throughout Lakeshore City feature most of the familiar event types that longtime players have come to expect from the series, from closed-loop lap and endurance races to drift challenges, which players can bet on their chances at beating a specific rival for an opportunity for extra cash. The only meaningful addition comes in the form of Takeover events, as rapper A$AP Rocky challenges players in a solo activity where building scores and combos via drifting, smashing obstacles and performing jumps is the only path to victory. Since obstacles don’t respawn in between each lap, players must avoid the urge to destroy everything on the first lap in order to help keep the combo meter high during the remaining two laps, helping Takeovers serve as a refreshing diversion aside from the usual events. Players will need to choose which events they want to partake in wisely, as there are only a limited number of restart attempts per time of day, spurring multiple instances of deciding between taking the guaranteed reward or risking it all for another shot at first place.
Considering Unbound’s unique approach to animation styles, as people and vehicle effects receive the cel-shaded treatment while the environments and cars remain focused on realism, it’s disappointing that Lakeshore City comes across as generic and uninspired, despite featuring the usual Chicago landmarks and architectural styles. There’s potential for the city to have been spiced up by the creative elements that populate other elements of the game, even if on a small scale. On the plus side, Lakeshore City is filled to the brim with other activities to keep players engaged outside of races. In addition to delivery missions where players must keep high-end vehicles in pristine condition while staying one step ahead of the cops, the most curious drivers can seek out green circles on the minimap and track down street art, smash billboards and discover inflatable bears to help complete challenges and unlock additional cash and rewards. As seems to be the new standard for open world racing games, players can also partake in small-scale activities located throughout the city with the goal of acquiring up to three stars, such as Drift Zones, Long Jumps and Speed Runs and Traps. Thankfully, these side challenges won’t raise your Heat meter, but if it’s already beyond a certain tier, your time may be better spent finding the nearest garage as opposed to trying to find that one pesky bear.
Unbound’s online mode offers many of the same elements found in the single player mode, with progression on collectibles, activities and other solo challenges carrying over. Unfortunately, most of the high stakes components are not featured when playing with others, as all events and exploration takes place during the day and Lakeshore City is surprisingly free of all police presence. This makes it far easier to acquire cash to spend on upgrades and new vehicles, which is particularly helpful since the online mode isn’t limited by the same car tier progression of the story mode. While it was never tough to find a full lobby of sixteen players during launch weekend, finding enough racers that wanted to partake in a race of the same car tier did prove to be challenging despite the simple invite system, leading to race playlists that only had one or two other opponents instead of a full eight player race. Players who primarily plan to spend most of their time online will likely want to build a roster of multiple vehicles across different tiers, so they can engage in most races regardless of the expected car type. With full cross-play support and no additional performance issues or drop outs to speak of during our time playing with others, the online mode is a welcome secondary mode to the base campaign, even if it lacks the Takeover events and cops that help the latter feel more fleshed out at launch.
As a current generation console exclusive, Unbound shines in its performance, even if its bold aesthetic choices may not always be as pleasing as they intend. On PS5, the game nails its 4K, 60 FPS goal with minimal issues, regardless of whether you’re playing single player or online. Dropping into the open world after exiting the garage or finishing a race does often necessitate a few seconds for the textures to fully load, but the sound design at high speeds is remarkable and the pop-in is shockingly negligible, helping Unbound establish itself as one of the best-looking open world racing games to date in a genre that has increasingly prided itself on its visuals. The anime-inspired animation style doesn’t particularly shine with its character design during cutscenes, but seeing the wide variety of vehicle effects on your and your opponents’ cars adds that little something extra that makes the game feel creatively inspired and ensures it immediately stands out to first time players. A$AP Rocky’s influence extends beyond his appearance in the Takeover mode, with several songs of his featuring on the globally inspired hip-hop soundtrack that will likely appeal to fans of the genre.
Closing Comments:
Need for Speed Unbound brings plenty of style and builds upon the high stakes dynamic established in 2019’s Heat to create an engaging and enjoyable open world racing game. The large emphasis on story falls flat once again particularly during the slow opening hours, and the online mode lacks some of the best aspects of the single player mode, including police and Takeover events. Fortunately, the excellent performance and smart overhaul to the turbo system ensures the moment-to-moment gameplay always feels great, and the huge amount of unlockable vehicles, customization options and optional activities and collectibles means there’s always plenty to do each time you make the trip to Lakeshore City.
Need for Speed Unbound
Reviewed on PlayStation 5
- Franchise
- Need for Speed
- Platform(s)
- PC , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S
- Released
- December 2, 2022
- Developer(s)
- Criterion Games
- Publisher(s)
- Electronic Arts
- Genre(s)
- Racing , Open-World
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Mild Violence
- How Long To Beat
- 25 Hours
- Platforms
- PS5, Xbox, PC
- Publishers
- Electronic Arts
- Release Date
- December 2nd, 2022