Need for Speed Unbound – The Street Racing King Returns

It’s been a few years since we’ve had the pleasure of playing a Need for Speed game, and a good one at that. When EA revealed it was working on another title in the series, Need for Speed Unbound, I wasn’t sure what to think. The last few games were lukewarm at best, and there were better games to play at the time. However, when it was also revealed that Criterion would helm this release, I started to change my tune. We’re talking about the developer who created one of my favorite racing games ever, and their NFS entries weren’t bad, either. So back into the streets, I went, but I was happy I did.

Platform(s):  PC (reviewed), PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Publisher(s): Electronic Arts
Developer(s): Criterion 
Release Date: November 29th, 2022

Ah, yes, we’re finally back with some damned fun street racing with the 25th installment of the Need for Speed license, and that made me very happy. Need for Speed Unbound had me blasting through the fictional city of Lakeshore while playing through a narrative that tells the tale of a dysfunctional family whose only reason for existence is their love for cars, and street racing, but it somewhat manages to keep them together. Well, somewhat. Most of the characters are forgettable, except the main four.

Without spoiling too much, you’re given four weeks to build up a garage of tuned cars, so you can enter this massive end-game called “The Grand.” Of course, getting to the Grand will take time and lots of money. Along the way, you’ll converse with NPCs, race your way to events to make money, and evade the police. That said, Outside of that, the narrative is full of reused tropes, and pop culture references that serve to ease players into the game and push the main goal — making money to buy cars, so you can win races so that you can make money so that you can buy cars. See a trend here?

I feel the Need for Speed

Ignoring the narrative (not that you can for the first 20 hours or so), the main aspect of Need for Speed is taking it to the street and proving that your car (and you) are the ones to beat. All of this takes place throughout the open world of Lakeshore, which is full of city streets and countryside roads to race through, or you can take it off-road. Not to mention the world is littered with billboards, sad-looking bear statues, drift zones, speed traps, and ramps that add to your bank account when you surpass the requirements There’s also some fantastic street art that can be collected, not don’t really do much for you, other than having the ability to look at it once collected.

A lot is going on with Need for Speed Unbound, but the most important stuff is that once you get the keys to your car, you’re able to cruise around the city, take in the sights and attempt to go as fast as you can. Until you smack right into the traffic amid a race. Sadly, as this is a street racing game, you’re not the only one on the roads, and I found myself plummeting into countless other vehicles as I attempted to surpass the speed limit. I even noticed that, at times, the other vehicles would attempt to plow into me or stop in the middle of the streets as I approached. Though some of those crashes were spectacular, more often than they just annoyed me. But when you avoid those cars, the world comes to life as you’re speeding and drifting around various corners, jumping ramps, going off-road, and various other speed-related things. I had a blast just by seeing how fast I could go.

Lastly, like every other arcade racer on the market, rubber banding does feel like a bit of an issue, and it definitely made the game more of a challenge than I expected. In most arcade games, I could easily outpace the AI-controller racers, but here, I was barely holding my own at times. Even with a heavily tuned car, the other racers would either keep up with me, or in several instances, would be so far in front that I would restart the race that it was impossible to catch up.

Thankfully, it was more than just going fast. As I collected money, I could purchase new cars, or parts to tune up those cars. And while the tuning in the game isn’t as deep as, say, Forza Motorsports, or Gran Turismo, there’s plenty to mess with. From the gearing, acceleration, top speed, and choosing from either making your street beast a drifting monster, or a cool cat that hugs the road so much that owns every corner. Honestly, I appreciated that I could tune several cars to be 100% drift and didn’t require me to drift around every blasted corner. Sure, that’s fun and all, but sometimes I do want to drive using the superior means.

But it’s not all about performance because what good is owning the streets if you can’t look good doing it? Aside from mods that helped me perform better, various parts also make me look amazing. We’re talking about neon lights that I could stick under my car, body kits, various wheel effects, and more.

Cops and Street Racers

One of my favorite parts of Need for Speed Unbound is the police chases, which can range from mildly annoying when you start out to, HOLY SHIT, I CAN’T SHAKE THEM. Most of my 40-plus hours with the game was just driving around, and getting as many police to follow me, just to see how fast and often I could shake them. Thankfully, Lakeshore is full of places to drive, and it literally turns into a driving paradise, and police were my friends who just wanted to tag me.

Seriously though, the police are definitely a step up from Need for Speed Most Wanted, as they were tenacious and really didn’t want me losing them. Though, as tough as they were, they’re still easy to escape as long as you use the city to your advantage. But man, it’s fun when the man is on your tail. If the game just had a mode where you did nothing but outrun the police, I’d be sold on it.

Not sold on the online mode

I’m not completely sure why the single-player portion and the online (multiplayer) portions are two different modes, and I’m not sure this idea is a good idea for the longevity of NFS Unbound’s online community. While some of the single-player stuff does progress to the multiplayer, such as the number of collectibles you’ve accumulated, billboards, and the bear statues you’ve smashed, that’s it. You’ll have to start over in terms of your money and cars, which is already a big strike in my book. In addition, the servers, even days after the release, are still mostly empty, which hurts. Especially since you’ll need other players to take the place of the AI-controlled racers don’t exist in this mode. If there’s no one on the server you’re playing on, you won’t get in any races.

The upside to this is that when you finally do get players in your servers, there’s less traffic to get in your way, no police (depending on which races you pick), and you’re able to make more cash from the races. This allows you to get better cars much faster, and while buying clothes in the single-player mode didn’t make much sense, here, you can show off your creative side. That goes double for the cars.

That said, while I seem negative about the multiplayer portion, playing on a populated server is loads of fun. The problem is that once you’ve beaten the game, there’s no real motivation to jump online, and that could hurt the longevity of NFS Unbound.

It’s pretty, damn, it’s pretty

When Need for Speed Unbound was first revealed, I’ve seen a number of people grumble because they thought the game as going to be an “Anime Need for Speed,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, the characters in the game have an anime-style look to them, but they’re more cel-shaded than anything, and I dug the style that Criterion was going for. However, everything else, including the streets and cars, are photo-realistic. Racing through the world, you’re treated to a visual tour de force, complete with burnout animations, wheel effects, and even the reflection of your car’s tail lights streaking blast down the streets. It’s something that you have to see in motion to appreciate. I also enjoyed the “street style” that the developer was going for, merging the hip-hop culture and gotta-go fast-tuning scene that movies such as ‘The Fast and Furious have shoved in our faces.

That goes double for the sounds and music. The game features some impressive sounds, and the soundtrack is equally on the same level. However, I wasn’t a fan of all of the music selections, and some of the songs were downright annoying. The inability to exclude certain songs while playing was a terrible decision, as was not adding a streamer mode. Sure, you can just turn down the music, but then there’s nothing else to listen to — other than the sweet sounds the cars make.

Despite all that, I did have an issue — why does it always have to be raining? Most of the time with the game, it was constantly raining, which gave the roads a slick look. At the same time, it was impressive seeing the rain bounce off the car and splash onto the windshield.

Let’s talk PC-centric options

Without going into heavy detail, Need for Speed Unbound has all the PC options that you’d expect from a proper PC game. You’re able to adjust a number of visual settings, including dynamic resolutions, DLSS, FSR, Nvidia Reflex, shadow and texture quality, VSync, key bindings, and more. On the performance since of things, my PC equipped with an RTX 3080 Ti and an AMD Ryzen 5900x, had no issue running the game at both 1440p or 4K, with DLSS set to quality. It’s a right proper PC port, and it’s always a joy when we get one of those, especially when it’s an AAA title.

Cruising Lakeshore USA

All in all, Need for Speed Unbound is an impressive entry in the NFS series, and I’m glad that EA realized that Criterion was needed to bring the game back to its former glory. After dumping 40-plus hours in the game, I still haven’t put my controller down because I’m still having fun. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun with an arcade racer, and yes, that includes a certain game that starts with F and ends with N. Now, if they’d only add a police escape mode that we can adjust the heat levels and let us fight it out, the game would be just about perfect.

Need for Speed Unbound is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: A copy of Need for Speed Unbound was provided to us by EA  for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.

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