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Game Information




Game Title: Need for Speed Unbound

Platforms:

• PC (Dec 2, 2022)
• Xbox Series X/S (Dec 2, 2022)
• PlayStation 5 (Dec 2, 2022)
• Xbox One (Dec 2, 2022)
• PlayStation 4 (Dec 2, 2022)

Trailers:

• Need for Speed Unbound - Takeover Event Gameplay Trailer (ft. A$AP Rocky)
• Need for Speed Unbound - Risk & Reward Gameplay Trailer
• Need for Speed Unbound - Official Reveal Trailer (ft. A$AP Rocky)

Developer: Criterion Games

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 84 average - 63% recommended - 8 reviews

MetaCritic (PS5) 80/100 :

Critic Reviews

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Attack of the Fanboy - Shaun Cichacki - 4.5 / 5

Bringing a fresh new art style to the franchise that we hope sticks around for years to come, this ain't your daddy's Need for Speed. And maybe, that's a good thing. With Heat pushing the franchise in a bold new direction, Need For Speed Unbound borrows almost everything that made that title special and improves upon it.

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Digital Chumps - Benjamine Branscum - 9.7 / 10

'Need for Speed Unbound' is what we all needed. Like a throwback to the older NFS games. Unbound says, 'Hey, I'm really just here to have a damn good time,' and hands you the keys.

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GamePro - Annika Bavendiek - German - 83 / 100

Need for Speed Unbound is a fun racer with a comic look that challenges and motivates, but exaggerates a bit in terms of police and story.

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GamesRadar+ - Justin Towell - 4 / 5

At 4K/60, Need for Speed Unbound is a clear showcase for the new generation of consoles"

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Hobby Consolas - David Rodriguez - Spanish - 78 / 100

Need for Speed Unbound does not reinvent the wheel, but it does tune it. Criterion Games wanted to stand out with its new artistic style and a more than remarkable technical power and has succeeded. This is not the best driving game of the year, but we do see an NFS that wants the saga to return to the highest categories. Funny, fast and furious.

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PlayStation Universe - John-Paul Jones - 9 / 10

Visually astounding with a weighty handling model and some super clever design, Need for Speed Unbound is easily the best Need for Speed in years. Though the single-player story campaign is a little less inspiring than it needs to be both in terms of its plot and content, Need for Speed Unbound nonetheless sets a resoundingly solid foundation for the Need for Speed franchise to evolve into the future and is essential for fans of both the series and the street racing genre at large.

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The Beta Network - Anthony Culinas - 6 / 10

Need for Speed Unbound is an average-at-best arcade experience. With the headlights firmly set on street racing, It’s hard to enjoy the action when the turning controls are just not quite there, but the focus on tailing, drifting and near-misses to gain NOS is highly engaging. Well, except when a random NPC driver casually rams your car out of nowhere. Still, there is an extensive amount of customisation and a few open-world activities to take part in like time-trial deliveries, speed gates and escaping cops, though not to the same extent and depth as Forza Horizon 5.

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Windows Central - Cole Martin - 3.5 / 5

Criterion has managed to create a vibrant, beautiful, high octane Need for Speed entry that dares to breathe new life into a franchise that desperately needed it.

 

[anthony2690]

Had a quick go on the trial, and really enjoyed myself and thought the game looked great visually too

My only complaints really are:
The dialogue, bro this, bro that, bro shut up please. (I think this will put a lot of people off)
The music genre/soundtrack isn't really to my liking, some of it was okay whilst driving though.

But I enjoyed the gameplay enough, and now I've deleted the trial and looking forward to playing it during the Christmas period

 

[Valedix]

When this does better than Callisto LOL

 

[Fbh]

Will try it when it comes to ps+ in 12-15 months

 

[jorgejjvr]

There's a demo?

 

[anthony2690]

There's a demo?

EA play, 10 hour trial

 

[Digity]

Watched Jimmy Broadbent play some of this the other day. Dialogue is atrocious and the driving looks equally as bad. It’s hard playing racing games that don’t support wheels now anyways.

 

[Big Baller]

Wow, I played for about an hour but the whole vibe isnt for me. It looks okay though.

 

[Aaron Olive]

When this does better than Callisto LOL

Was thinking the same… a racing game beat a shooter but I’m having a blast with NFS:U. The motion blur is smooth as butter, visuals are appealing and operation quite well optimized.

Only complaint is lack of wheel support so no use of my Fanatec gear.

 

[Certinty]

A good game that could have been great had they actually focused on what fans wanted rather than this whole crappy vibe they ended up going for.

 

[Aaron Olive]

A good game that could have been great had they actually focused on what fans wanted rather than this whole crappy vibe they ended up going for.

Fill me in, Is it carbon?

 

[-Zelda-]

One of those reviews said "not the best racing game on the PS5"
Since I do not know much about this style of game, what is one on PS5 that is considered "the best" with a good campaign story and with good driving?

 

[GHG]

"At 4K/60, Need for Speed Unbound is a clear showcase for the new generation of consoles"

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Having played it myself I’m slightly bemused by the high praise for the visuals. Forget the cartoon like effects for moment, play this game and compare with the likes of 2015 particularly during its rainy nighttime period, it barely improves on it if at all.

 

[wvnative]

Feels like i'm tripping because I have had a miserable time, i find the game tedious and grindy and too difficult.

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

too difficult.

I also think that the game is difficult.
Every Race feels like a sweaty COD Lobby.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

Having played it myself I’m slightly bemused by the high praise for the visuals. Forget the cartoon like effects for moment, play this game and compare with the likes of 2015 particularly during its rainy nighttime period, it barely improves on it if at all.

LOL you need to get your eyes checked if you really believe that

 

[drotahorror]

NFS Heat 1.5

wack ass shit

NFS has had some ups and downs but the past decade has been some of the lowest of lows. EA need to Visceral Criterion and Ghost Games. Fucking gutter trash studios.

 

[Max_Po]

Heard on the Twatter that itz the suketh !!!

 

[01011001]

Having played it myself I’m slightly bemused by the high praise for the visuals. Forget the cartoon like effects for moment, play this game and compare with the likes of 2015 particularly during its rainy nighttime period, it barely improves on it if at all.

it's the fucking Drive Club argument all over again lol
"but it looks good if you don't see anything but rain and wet dark roads!"

 

[digoutyoursoul]

it's the fucking Drive Club argument all over again lol
"but it looks good if you don't see anything but rain and wet dark roads!"

For the platforms it’s released on I was hoping it would be more impressive looking.

Often the differences become immediately apparent in what is supposedly the next generation of software, I don’t see it with this game.

 

[IWasInSeinfeld]

Watched Jimmy Broadbent play some of this the other day. Dialogue is atrocious and the driving looks equally as bad. It’s hard playing racing games that don’t support wheels now anyways.

Man, speaking of the dialogue, it was always kind of a hit or miss, sometimes dialogue in MW felt like a high school drama of some sort.

 

[01011001]

For the platforms it’s released on I was hoping it would be more impressive looking.

Often the differences become immediately apparent in what is supposedly the next generation of software, I don’t see it with this game.

it has to be repeated, but I said this in many a thread many a time...
this generation of consoles will not offer any games that look substantially better than last gen games.

especially if the game on the new consoles is 60fps while the game on the old consoles was 30fps

the only "breakthrough" advancement in technology we got this gen is Raytracing, and these consoles sadly use AMD GPUs which means Raytracing isn't something that will ever run that well on it.
there's basically no evolution in any other regard...

Last gen was using the equivalent of the DX12 feature set, and this gen is using the DX12 feature set as well... DX12 ultimate to be fair, but what these new features ad to the equation is not something that will stand out that much.


diminishing returns + a lack of big jumps in rasterisation = smaller obvious differences between the generations.


I made this quick example here...
let's imaging we start with a triangle and then double the sides for each generation, basically emulating the advancements in both polygon numbers a system can display and the shader complexity it can draw on screen...
at some point doubling the detail just ends up looking like the one that came before

the PS5 circle here has 2x as many vertices as the PS4 circle
let's zoom in like crazy and see the difference

and this is only doubling the detail. usually from one generation to the next we more than double the fidelity of many aspects a GPU can draw.
so my examples here over the generations is very tame.
example, a character on PS1 often had maybe 100 polygons for the whole body... on PS4 a character's head alone might have more than 6000 polygons!

Krato's polygons for the head alone compared over the years
PS2: 1200
PS3: 5700
PS4: 32000

do you think you'd be able to tell if the head of Kratos has 32,000 polygons or 64,000 polygons during gameplay?
would you be able to tell if the texture size of the brick wall you drive by is 3000x3000 or if it's 6000x6000? I bet not really, unless you stop and move the camera right up to it.

additionally we are also absolutely hitting a limit of what a dev team can realistically create within the typical development cycle of a game. Photogrammetry will help with that, as will Nanite and similar technologies that allow artists to scan in high detail models and use them without much issue, but that only helps a bit, and also again only if you look REALLY close at every detail.

 

[RPS37]

Wait this is out and did better than Callisto?
and there’s a trial on EA Play?
I know what I’m doing.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

For the platforms it’s released on I was hoping it would be more impressive looking.

Often the differences become immediately apparent in what is supposedly the next generation of software, I don’t see it with this game.

We aint seeing it with ANY games. There is less ambition and resources going into making great graphics this gen. This game looks ‘nice’ on console and that’s the most anyone should say.

These consoles also aren’t powerful enough to let todays lazy, unambitious devs brute force their games. PC’s are making the consoles look bad already and that’s not a good sign. Believe me I dont want that to be the case since i dont have a gaming P

 

[drotahorror]

it's the fucking Drive Club argument all over again lol
"but it looks good if you don't see anything but rain and wet dark roads!"

To be fair, NFS 15 only has night time. So comparing NFS 15 night time (the only way to play) to NFS Unbound's night time is fair. I do agree as well, NFS 15 looks better than NFS Unbound's night time. NFS Unbound does look better than Heat though., especially during the day.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Best NFS in a long time.

Can't complain about the graphics. With everything set to max and DLSS on, it looks super crisp. Cars look stunning. Environments are packed with detail and destructible clutter. YouTube videos don't do it justice.

I've played for 3 hours so far and damn I missed the "started from the bottom" feel in racing games. So good. Racing feels challenging and you need to perform well if you want to win. Some strategy is involved as you need to save money to enter the big race at the end of the week and can't just blow all your cash on upgrades.

8.5/10 seems justified. Possibly even higher but racing games always score lower for some reason.

 

[Orta]

Bro, those scores are like, you know, BROOOOO!!!

 

[theStartupSound]

With all the remakes around, maybe someone should remake NFS4 – I really liked the approach of different looking tracks in different countries with their own police cars.
And: there was no story, no dialogue … that helped too

 

[ParaSeoul]

Don't think theres ever been a truly bad NFS game even at EA's worst so I don't know why people are surprised,plenty of mediocre ones though. Only thing that didn't look too good about this game are those cartoony smoke effects.

 

[H . R . 2]

why is EA always trying to appeal to this TickTock crowd of "bros" and "dudes" that are not even old enough to drive a car?
bring back NFS with a deliberate focus on a mature and serious story, cars that are exclusively unlockable through XP, and some proper up-tempo techno/metal music.
original MW was the zenith of NFS. it SHAPED the racing culture rather than blindly following 'trends' on social media.

 

[Big Baller]

I just want a Driveclub 2.

 

[Black_Stride]

"At 4K/60, Need for Speed Unbound is a clear showcase for the new generation of consoles"

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Female police officer over the radio:

“let’s catch this asshole, I want to go back home to my wife and kids”

 

[theStartupSound]

why is EA always trying to appeal to this TickTock crowd of "bros" and "dudes" that are not even old enough to drive a car?
bring back NFS with a deliberate focus on a mature and serious story, cars that are exclusively unlockable through XP, and some proper up-tempo techno/metal music.
original MW was the zenith of NFS. it SHAPED the racing culture rather than blindly following 'trends' on social media.

When I started with NFS, I also wasn’t old enough to drive a car, which was a big part of why the game was attractive for me.

But maybe, they should split the NFS franchise again (like they did with NFS Shift back then). One for the TikToks and one for the people who loved the first games. Release them alternating like Forza Motorsport and Horizon do.
So you don’t disappoint anyone and have a more interesting racing game landscape.

What I would be interested in … is the way, Unbound presents itself, really the way, younger people want a racing game or is it more like “EA thinks this is how young people are”?

 

[Orta]

Female police officer over the radio:

“let’s catch this asshole, I want to go back home to my wife and kids”

Non binary kids I hope.

 

[Umbasaborne]

Happy to see the good scores. Its really awesome so far, definitely the return to form the series desperatley needed. While heat was a step in the right direction, this game knocks it out of the park where it counts. Maybe just turn all the voice acting off though lol

 

[Drizzlehell]

NFS Heat 1.5

wack ass shit

NFS has had some ups and downs but the past decade has been some of the lowest of lows. EA need to Visceral Criterion and Ghost Games. Fucking gutter trash studios.

Heat was alright. The only thing that really sucked about it were the unbalanced cops. At first they felt extremely overpowered but also kinda retarded because you could easily lose them just by jumping over a wall that they couldn't ram through, and once you've upgraded your car past a certain level, then they completely ceased to be a problem and their presence was more like a temporary nuisance than a worthy addition to the gameplay.

But racing itself was pretty fun overall, I had a decent time playing that game.

 

[nowifenolife]

Is there any free roam on this. After they explain the qualifiers and you get to see the calendar with upcoming events, it seems like I just cant go out and get collectables and just drive my car, I have to go out on a session where the cops are on my case all the time

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Is there any free roam on this. After they explain the qualifiers and you get to see the calendar with upcoming events, it seems like I just cant go out and get collectables and just drive my car, I have to go out on a session where the cops are on my case all the time

Cops ("Heat") reset every day in the morning.

 

[Kiya's Guard]

Corporate wants you to find the difference between this two pictures

 

[Drizzlehell]

it has to be repeated, but I said this in many a thread many a time...
this generation of consoles will not offer any games that look substantially better than last gen games.

especially if the game on the new consoles is 60fps while the game on the old consoles was 30fps

the only "breakthrough" advancement in technology we got this gen is Raytracing, and these consoles sadly use AMD GPUs which means Raytracing isn't something that will ever run that well on it.
there's basically no evolution in any other regard...

Last gen was using the equivalent of the DX12 feature set, and this gen is using the DX12 feature set as well... DX12 ultimate to be fair, but what these new features ad to the equation is not something that will stand out that much.


diminishing returns + a lack of big jumps in rasterisation = smaller obvious differences between the generations.


I made this quick example here...
let's imaging we start with a triangle and then double the sides for each generation, basically emulating the advancements in both polygon numbers a system can display and the shader complexity it can draw on screen...
at some point doubling the detail just ends up looking like the one that came before

the PS5 circle here has 2x as many vertices as the PS4 circle
let's zoom in like crazy and see the difference

and this is only doubling the detail. usually from one generation to the next we more than double the fidelity of many aspects a GPU can draw.
so my examples here over the generations is very tame.
example, a character on PS1 often had maybe 100 polygons for the whole body... on PS4 a character's head alone might have more than 6000 polygons!

Krato's polygons for the head alone compared over the years
PS2: 1200
PS3: 5700
PS4: 32000

do you think you'd be able to tell if the head of Kratos has 32,000 polygons or 64,000 polygons during gameplay?
would you be able to tell if the texture size of the brick wall you drive by is 3000x3000 or if it's 6000x6000? I bet not really, unless you stop and move the camera right up to it.

additionally we are also absolutely hitting a limit of what a dev team can realistically create within the typical development cycle of a game. Photogrammetry will help with that, as will Nanite and similar technologies that allow artists to scan in high detail models and use them without much issue, but that only helps a bit, and also again only if you look REALLY close at every detail.

The PS5 one is clearly more round.

Also, that's a bit of an oversimplification. It's not just about the polygons. There are many other things that can be introduced with more processing power, inlcuding more advanced physics, which still seem to be lagging behind in video games because the best you can hope for in terms of interactivity is maybe smashing some boxes or hurling ragdolls around. But where's the technology that will finally make my character stop clipping through level meshes and random pieces of foliage?

 

[deriks]

Corporate wants you to find the difference between this two pictures

(kudos to The Office reference)

 

[nowifenolife]

Cops ("Heat") reset every day in the morning.

But it seems like I can only play at night? I must be missing something...

 

[Salz01]

I really wish I could turn off the hud all the way, especially the one at the top right corner. It’s gonna kill my oled….

 

[Markio128]

I’m a little puzzled by the lack of reviews tbh - 6?! For such a high profile release it’s crazy. I’m currently on the fence, even though I love racers and this one looks like it could be fun, but I’m not pulling the trigger until a much larger pool of reviews have dropped.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

I’m a little puzzled by the lack of reviews tbh - 6?! For such a high profile release it’s crazy. I’m currently on the fence, even though I love racers and this one looks like it could be fun, but I’m not pulling the trigger until a much larger pool of reviews have dropped.

There are 1.5k+ reviews on Steam already. 82% positive. What more do you need?

 

[jufonuk]

Was thinking the same… a racing game beat a shooter but I’m have a blast with NFS:U. The motion blur is smooth as butter, visuals are appealing and operation quite well optimized.

Only complaint is lack of wheel support so no use of my Fanatec gear.

Hopefully it will be added later.

 

[Markio128]

There are 1.5k+ reviews on Steam already. 82% positive. What more do you need?

I don’t have Steam, so was not aware of that until now. This is positive, but I was only observing how strange it is that the game lacks reviews from the media after release. And if I was to go off user comments, it ain’t sounding great in this thread, so I’m still going to wait a bit, especially since the game is £60-£70 on PS5.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

I don’t have Steam, so was not aware of that until now. This is positive, but I was only observing how strange it is that the game lacks reviews from the media after release. And if I was to go off user comments, it ain’t sounding great in this thread, so I’m still going to wait a bit, especially since the game is £60-£70 on PS5.

70 GBP is ooooooooooooooof considering you can get it for 38 GBP on PC.

I don't know about PS5 but on PC if you subscribe to EA Play for 4 EUR you get 10 hours trail. That's how I'm playing