While I did enjoy and play a lot of Need For Speed Heat, I’ve been hoping for the series to return more to its glory days of Most Wanted, and Underground 1 & 2. Headed up once again by Criterion, Need For Speed Unbound is their latest entry in the Need For Speed franchise.

Need For Speed Unbound is an open-world racer that builds upon the foundations of NFS Heat, but steers the series back into the right direction with its polished, hyper-stylised look, and the absolutely fun arcade racer we’ve been wanting.

What makes Need For Speed Unbound a little different from its previous titles are the comic book-style characters and effects, while still keeping that realistic look of the cars and environments. When we first got a look at the gameplay trailers for Unbound, I honestly wasn’t sure what I felt about this art direction, but after getting our hands on it, I have to say, I’m kinda digging it.

Before you start, you’ll need to create your character, which gives you a few options to play with. After selecting Male or Female, you’ll be able to further customise your character by modifying their hair, facial hair, and face details, along with clothing (top, bottoms, shoes, hats, glasses, etc).

The story in Need For Speed Unbound is what you’d expect from these types of games. It’s a story of loyalty, betrayal, and revenge. You play as a nameless protagonist who is looking to rise to the top of the local racing scene in Lakeshore City. The game’s campaign takes place over four in-game weeks, each building up to the game’s finale.

By day, you’ll be able to run different race events such as Sprints, Street Circuits, and Drift Challengers, all getting harder and attracting more police attention as you progress the story. The same goes for racing at night, but police patrols are thicker and more aware. At the end of the night, making it safely back to one of your safe houses (without the police on your tail) lets you bank all the earnings you’ve made. This is important because to progress through the story’s main events, you’ll need cash to buy into race qualifiers, so spending a few in-game days partaking in different events and earning cash is a must.

The day/night cycle is adopted from Need For Speed Heat, but Unbound changes it up a little. Money earned from events in the daytime needs to be banked at a safehouse before you can start racing into the night. Your Police Heat level also carries over and only resets once you’re done with the night. Like in NFS Heat, night events tend to net you much higher payouts, but they do come with the cost of a much larger police presence.

The driving in NFS Unbound sits in three different categories depending on your playstyle. Drift, Neutral, and Grip. Cars control really well in Unbound, especially once you’ve remastered the art of drifting, and cars are classed through a series of tiers, such as; B, A, A+, S, and S+, with various upgrades. Players are able to unlock and upgrade their cars, as well as the ability to tune them and push them even further, changing the way they drift or how they manage a turn.

Cars even come with a ton of customizable options such as body kits, paint options, wraps, under glow lights, and horns. The list goes on. There are also a ton of collectibles for you to find scattered all around Lakeshore City, such as billboards to smash through, street art to collect, and safehouses to find. Outside of the main races, you’ll have side activities around the city that you’re challenged to do, such as long jumps, drift zones, and speed traps. All pretty standard stuff for the NFS franchise.

It wouldn’t be an NFS game without its NOS/Boost feature. You can gain NOS by performing different actions as you drive, such as drafting behind other cars, near misses, getting huge air, or driving into oncoming traffic. One difference with Unbound’s NOS/Boost feature is there are two versions of it; Standard and Burst Nitrous. Standard works the same as previous titles. It can be consumed in small bursts, or all at once by holding the NOS button down. Burst Nitrous lets you trigger one of three short bursts and has its own recharge system. Performing things like drifts is the best way to fill this meter and comes in handy as you come out of a corner after a drift for that sudden surge of speed.

Graphically, Need For Speed Unbound is very eye-catching with its comic book-style effects as you perform anything from drifts, big air, or using your boost. The game runs at a silky smooth 60FPS on next-gen consoles presented in glorious 4K. The same can be said for the game’s musical choice. Unbound has a slapping soundtrack with a huge tracklist of hip-hop beats.

As for multiplayer, there is still no local split screen, which some might find a bit of a letdown. Personally, I don’t mind, as I can’t remember the last time I had the urge to have people around on the couch to play a racing game. The online mode in Unbound is completely separate from the main story mode and uses an entirely different bank, though cars you earn in the single-player are available in multiplayer, but not the other way around. Online with friends is a ton of fun, and I highly recommend getting some friends together and partaking in some online races.

Need For Speed Unbound doesn’t try to do anything too different, but instead, takes some of the gameplay mechanics that made the last few titles stand out and build upon them, slowly taking the series back to its glory days. If you enjoyed the last few titles and grew up with the older games, you’re going to have a fun time with Need For Speed Unbound.

Written by: MKAU Gaming