Need for Speed Unboundis the 25th primary installment in the franchise since the very first game released in 1994, and that experience is clearly packed into its core racing gameplay. Every race feels smooth from start to finish, but unfortunately, the majority ofNeed for Speed Unbounddoes not feel as refinedas its core gameplay.
Need for Speed Unboundtakes place in the fictional city of Lakeshore, where the mayor and local police are seeking to eliminate illegal street racing ahead of elections. A big-money racing event gets set up and takes players across four weeks and four major, multiple-race events: three qualifiers and the Lakeshore Grand. Players must race day and night across every day of these four-week periods to earn enough cash to buy their way in and build their cars up to snuff.
RELATED:A$AP Rocky Voices a Car Horn in Need for Speed Unbound
Arguably, few look to aNeed for Speed(or any racing game) for a good narrative, butNFS Unbound’s storyis perhaps the most generic of the past several years. It retreads the overused rival racer trope, repeats the same plot twists, and fails to make anything feel personal. Instead, the story pushes how money and the pursuit thereof are secondary to respect, honor, and family, but players will just be pursuing money constantly despite supposedly being funded. Ignoring that, though, fans will be able to enjoy some of the best core gameplay in the franchise to date.
Players are able to upgrade their cars through a series of tiers (B, A, A+, S, and S+), with various upgrades for every part of the engine. If players hit their limits, they’re even able to replace their entire block and unlock new upgrades to push it even higher. The substance in these upgrades is there, and so is the style. Every part of a vehicle comes with a ton of customizable body parts, including the complete removal of fenders, and the paint and wraps make sure fans can express themselves properly. Strangely, though, thedriving effects inNeed for Speed Unboundfeel like minor add-ons instead of an important customization option, which is odd given how heavily marketed they were.
Everycar drives and feels different inNeed for Speed Unbound, and the ability to tune the vehicles is second to none. Players are able to adjust how well their car drifts or how tightly it manages turns, using that to their advantage in every race. A lot ofNeed for Speedgames drop any real challenge, making it easy for even the most novice player to come in first constantly. That’s not the case here. To match how smooth driving a car feels,Need for Speed Unboundmakes sure players are constantly challenged. One wreck, one misstep, or one miscalculation will easily see players chasing the pack instead of leading it. Unfortunately, despite how good the game feels moment to moment, this is heavily undermined at every turn.
The racing types inNeed for Speed Unboundare lackluster, with players spending 90% of their time doing sprints or circuit races. What’s worse is players will see repeat maps before they even finish the first week. The races are sometimes altered with modifiers like big money, low risk, high risk, required heat levels, and so on, but every Tier has a handful of races and nothing more. There are a couple of head-to-head events, car deliveries, drifting events, andNeed for Speed Unbound’s new Takeover mode(which is just a drifting event with extra steps like getting points for jumps and hitting things), but there are no traditional eliminators outside the qualifiers. No drag races, no major offroad events, no real-time attacks, or anything innovative.
Players will also deal with police frequently, but it feels like a performative feature instead of something with depth. It seems promising at first, asNeed for Speed Unboundpits players against different police vehiclesbased on heat level (standard, AWD, undercover, interceptors, heavy units) that it says players should deal with differently, but there’s no real need to. The result of this approach is a small handful of vehicles that will chase the player, instead of epic police chases that require quick decision-making akin to older games, and these are easy to escape. The AI of these police vehicles is, at best, questionable. During chases, they’ll call out that they are about to pit the player or ram them, but then never do. They’ll deploy spike trips, but this is so telegraphed and often misplaced that they are easier to avoid than in any other franchise game to date.
When players encounter police inNeed for Speed Unbound’s open world, they can go flying by them at an unreasonable speed, hit three or four other vehicles, and perform a plethora of illegal actions, but as long as players are not directly in front of them and do not touch them, the police AI will not interact. Even when they begin spotting the player, it is easy to duck out of their way. It’s almost amusing to play with the AI, but undermines any artificial threat they create. For example, if aNeed for Speed Unboundplayer is busted, they lose all the cash they haven’t banked by ending the day or night. However, it’s far harder to get caught by the police than it is to escape them, and this is something players may, unfortunately, want to do from time to time.
The four-weekday and night cyclefeels like a lot of padding, especially as players will have tricked out their vehicles and be rolling in dough by the end of the third week. There are some races where players can unlock cars, so that’s encouraging, but sometimes they’ll begin a gameplay session where there are only races with low monetary rewards. Players will exit their garage and realize there are fewer and fewer interesting, non-repeat races to do as they move forward, and hope to move it along. Outside this,Need for Speed Unbound’s generic setting of Lakeshore ensures there’s nothing to push players to care more about getting to the next race. There are only one or two setpieces that stand out from others (and these are also repeated).
There’s also no fast travel feature, even for players to just get back to an unlocked safe house, and this is likely because players could be theoretically busted at any point. But again, these pursuits lack any real depth and just feel like a performative feature than a fully-developed core aspect of gameplay. Had the rest ofNeed for Speed Unboundreceived the same polish as its core gameplay, it would be a completely different story, but there’s not much here for players outside the next race.
Need for Speed Unboundalso features an online mode, where the difficulty is upped as players race against real people. There are full race playlists where players can compete against others, and the server size is just right to ensure there are constant races going. Here of all places, the intense gameplay manages to shine even brighter. The problem is that it’s presented exactly like the story mode, meaning everything wrong with Lakeshore andNFS Unbound’s general design is evident here too. It’s impossible to predict the future, but unless it is heavily supported with a plethora of renewed content,NFS Unbound’s online modeis likely to fade into obscurity.
As a result,Need for Speed Unboundfeels like it comes to a stop before it ever gets going. The polish in the moment-to-moment gameplay cannot be ignored, but as a whole,Need for Speed Unboundis just another forgettable entryin the long-running franchise.
Need for Speed Unboundis available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. Game Rant was provided an Xbox Series X code for the purposes of this review.
Need for Speed Unbound
WHERE TO PLAY
Race against time, outsmart the cops, and take on weekly qualifiers to reach The Grand, Lakeshore’s ultimate street racing challenge. Pack your garage with precision-tuned, custom rides and light up the streets with your style, exclusive fits, and a vibrant global soundtrack that bumps in every corner of the world.Content updates to the game come in the form of Volumes - as the game builds towards becoming the Ultimate NFS Experience in one place for the first time.
