2022 Need for Speed Unbound review

Over the video game franchise’s nearly 30-year history, Need for Speed has been everything from a high-stakes cop chase, motorsport-inspired sim racer and open-world street racing caricature.

And it’s in the latter category where the game has really found success, especially when stacked up against the more technically demanding Gran Turismo or ultra-fast-paced Forza Horizon.

Need for Speed’s latest entry, known as Unbound, doesn’t stray too much from the established street-racing formula, but stands apart from its rivals and even former games in the franchise thanks to a unique art style and banging soundtrack.

Let’s get things out of the way first, a car racing game has to look good, and it’s here where Need for Speed Unbound knocks it out of the park.

Not only do the car models look stunningly accurate, but the game world of Lakeshore City also appears believable with traffic-packed city streets, long stretches of open freeway and windy mountain roads.

The move to next-generation only consoles has clearly helped developer Criterion hit a high watermark for visual fidelity for the series, as they didn’t need to cater to the PS4/Xbox One install base.

Instead, focussing on the PS5/Xbox Series S/X and PC, means you will see buttery smooth 60 frames per second gameplay – absolutely essential for a fast-paced racing game like this.

The game also targets a resolution output of 4K, meaning textures and details look nice and crisp.

But what stands Unbound apart is its cartoony, comic book-like particle effects.

Crash into an object, nail a big jump, hit the nitrous button or rip a burnout and your car gets enveloped in an array of sparkles, cell-shaded smoke and even sprouts cartoon wings.

And, like with most things in this game, there are customisation options to change the colours and effects to suit whatever your taste.

Unbound adds cartoony, comic book-like particle effects.

As you can swap individual intake, exhaust, nitrous, tyre, suspension, and even whole powertrain options to improve the performance of your vehicle, so too can you change your cars zany cartoon effects.

Also a win for this year’s game is the killer soundtrack, which leans much more heavily on hip-hop tunes and even features non-English tracks.

There will be some that miss the rock ‘n’ roll or house songs of past games, but the deep bass and upbeat tempo of Unbound’s music really suits its world.

In fact, American rapper A$AP Rocky features in the game, with his car of choice – a heavily modified Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5 L – featuring as the cover car.

A$AP Rocky only has a minor role in the game.

Unfortunately for Mr Rocky fans, he doesn’t feature too heavily in the story, and just appears at certain events to egg on the player character.

But he certainly looks cool as all the character models feature a distinct cell-shaded appearance that contrasts strikingly against the photo-realistic vehicles.

OK, onto the negatives then.

Unlike most racing games, more emphasis is placed on the story of Need for Speed Unbound, but unfortunately, it’s just not that good.

The storyline is predictable if you’ve played any Need for Speed street-racing game in the past, and involves a betrayal from a friend, followed by working your way up the racer ranks for a chance at revenge and to win back your old car.

Cars feel like they are either stuck to rails or the rear end is spinning wildly out of control.

However, the dialogue is what seals its fate, as it is more than just a bit cringey.

Maybe I am getting too old, but the Gen Z-slang and vernacular is just so grating.

Money is referred to as ‘stacks’, phrases like ‘pimp it, don’t scrimp it’ are thrown around without any irony, and every other character ends a phone call yelling ‘peace’.

It’s a truly humbling experience when I can relate more to the ‘old man’ garage owner who has trouble with social media and streaming technology than I can with the protagonist and their friends who are actually running the races.

Speaking of, Unbound shares a similar day/night structure as its predecessor, 2019’s Need for Speed Heat, in which the cops get much more aggressive when the sun goes down.

The police chases are let down by an overly aggressive AI.

The gameplay loop is split up like this.

Every morning your ‘heat’ (or how much attention the cops will give you) gets reset to zero, and you go out to meetups with other racers to try and earn as much money as possible.

Each event will slowly increase your heat level to a maximum of five, and each level will bring in more aggressive and powerful police vehicles such as a Chevrolet Corvette pursuit car and a Ford F-150 Raptor battering ram.

If a cop busts you before you can make it back to base, you lose all your earnings for that session, but if you can make it to a garage, you bank you cash and then the day turns to night.

At night your heat level carries over from the day, but events are now all of a sudden much more lucrative, incentivising you to push to do more races for a bigger pay cheque, but also risking getting busted by the full force of the law.

Progression in the game feels unbalanced.

It’s a neat loop on paper, but unfortunately the police chases are let down by an overly aggressive AI that can seemingly catch up to you in an instant, as well as helicopters and backup that can seemingly spawn in right next you at any given time.

And because of this, the night time in Unbound feels more like a sneaking game than a racing one.

I ended up staring constantly at my mini map for any sign of law enforcement, and would instantly turn off and try and find a new route to my destination rather than risk a lengthy (and potentially bank-ruining) chase.

And all this is compounded by a progression system that feels unfair and even unbalanced.

The start of Unbound can be especially challenging because the enemy AI racers are so damn good, and the rewards you get for winning events are so small that it seems like you are grinding quite a bit just to make some headway into higher performing cars.

There are various tuning options available.

And you will not always come first in a race – that’s something I really had to get used to.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like a challenge when it comes to racing games, but I found myself in a situation where I spent too much money on cosmetic modifications and couldn’t keep up with other racers or escape from the cops.

I had to restart my game to better optimise where my money went, and even decreased the difficulty to the easiest setting so I could progress through the game even quicker.

And all this would be fine, if Need for Speed Unbound was excellent to play, but I’m sorry to report the handling model in this game is – like a 30-year-old car without a full-service history – a bit sketchy.

Cars feel like they are either stuck to rails or the rear end is spinning wildly out of control – there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.

There are various tuning options available where you can push the car more towards ‘grip’ or ‘drift’ in your builds, but the physics just feel a little too off to really master.

Should you pick up this year’s Need for Speed Unbound? 

Unbound features 140 different vehicles.

That all depends on what you value out of a racing game.

With nearly infinite levels of cosmetic and performance modifications across 140 different vehicles, there is heaps of fun to be had building your ultimate Honda Civic, Nissan Z, BMW M2 or Ferrari 488 Pista.

However, the highs of slapping together a truly individual build are hampered somewhat by gameplay that is hard to master and hard to progress.

If you are determined to stick it out to the middle and latter parts of the game, things do become a little easier once more options to combat the ultra-aggressive cops are made available, but – as the kids say – prepare to ‘hustle hard’ to get there.