Need For Speed Heat PC Archives

Welcome to Palm City, a unique hybrid of West Coast meets East Coast where the bustling city and surrounding mountains of Los Angeles are enhanced with the design aesthetics of Miami, the neon strip of South Beach, and even a dash of Cape Canaveral. This diverse and impressively large landscape is home to Need for Speed Heat; the latest installment in a franchise of games I’ve been playing since the late 80’s when the original game shipped on a single 5” floppy. The series has been hit and miss lately with EA taking seemingly random stabs at trying to evolve the game into something different, but thankfully, Heat returns the series to greatness by returning to its roots.

Need for Speed Heat loses all the baggage from the previous few titles like modifying your car with trading cards and the blatant monetization tactics of loot boxes and such. Heat is a standalone game right out of the “box”, playable and enjoyable in its entirety without a single extra dollar coming out of your wallet. It’s blends multiple genres of racing as well as embracing the underground culture of the street racing lifestyle while combining plenty of fun and challenging racing action with a wealth of collectibles and car-related activities.

The game kicks off with a spectacular opening movie that setups the overall conflict between the militant police force and those rebel street racers. The police chief has declared war on street racing, which makes this the perfect opportunity to introduce some new blood into the family. Cue the character creation and initial car selection segment we all know and love. Choose from 12 racial/gender stereotypes then customize them with surprisingly amounts of detail and clothing options. The possibilities only get larger the further you go into the game and earn money to buy more stuff. Unlike most games where you seldom see your avatar, Heat prominently features your character in post-race clips as well as numerous cutscenes, so I ended up caring more about my personal style in this game than previous games.

Next, you will need to choose from one of the four cars offered to you that mirror the four styles of racing found in the game; Racing, Off-road, Drift, and Road. Again, not to worry as most cars can be tweaked and tuned to cover multiple racing styles, and your race winnings will add up quickly, which means a new car is as easy as a short trip to the nearby dealership. The Garage is your main base where you can maintain your stable of vehicles. The upgrade system is impressive with a host of cosmetic and performance parts that will quickly drain your bank account. One feature I found totally unique is the ability to upgrade your engine, which means you could conceivably play the entire game with the free car you get at the beginning unlike most racing games that make you purchase new, higher class vehicles to stay competitive.

Need for Speed Heat is divided into two distinct games within the game. Your progression within the street racer community is based on earning Reputation points while your ability to compete in that community is based on earning enough money to maintain your competitive edge on the street and your high sense of fashion in the driver’s seat. Just kidding…nobody cares how you look. The game creates this unique duality by having you race for cash during the day and reputation at night.   Rep unlocks the parts you’ll need to buy with cash. Rep is earned by completing street races as well as messing with the cops, and the higher your “heat” level the faster your rep adds up, but the higher the heat the more cops get involved and the harder it is to escape. If you get busted you’ll lose everything you’ve built up that night, so the longer you risk staying out the more you have to lose. You can usually lose the cops the first two chases, but after that they bring out bigger vehicles and start laying down spike strips.

Daytime races are organized events, usually on closed circuits setup around town or out in the surrounding rural and industrial areas. Street races take place at night, often in the same surrounding, but now you’ll be racing through traffic and with the added threat of the police that will keep chasing you even after you cross the finish line. Also helping to distinguish day from night are unique sets of challenges specific to the time of day. Once you check all these off, new challenges will appear. There is no real-time day/night cycle; instead you are allowed to pick the time of day before leaving the garage or toggle it from the pause screen while driving about. It’s a very cool effect to change the time of day while driving, as your car (and the entire screen) will spin around like an advancing clock. You can even cycle the map between night and day to see what events are waiting in each.

Given the sheer amount of stuff to do in Need for Speed Heat, actual racing almost takes a backseat. There are billboards to smash, pink flamingos to destroy, graffiti to scan (which turns into wrap designs for your car), speed traps, drift zones, jump distance challenges, plus gas stations, and safe houses to unlock. Those final two are most important as safe houses not only allow you to fast-travel around the map; they also provide an escape from the cops at night. Gas stations are equally as important, as they provide drive-thru repair to fix any car damage. This is unlimited during the day but you only get three repairs at night.

Peppered throughout all the career racing and the massive assortment of collectibles and activities are key story missions that will advance the narrative. These, like most races, are gated by the power rating of your car which, if you are keeping up with your upgrades, should never be an issue. The progression of difficulty is nicely balanced and if I ever did get to a point where I couldn’t proceed I certainly had enough cash winnings to upgrade or buy a new car to meet those new demands. The same goes for racing modes. I don’t particularly enjoy drifting or drift challenges, so when it came time where I was actually forced to complete some I had to go buy a car with a good drift rating.

Technically, Need for Speed Heat is a stunner on a high-end PC. With all options set to their highest settings I wasn’t quite able to get the game to run at 4K/60fps on my 2080ti card. If I lowered some detail options things smoothed out, but I instead chose to run at 256×1440, which ran flawlessly at 60fps with every setting cranked to the max. There is no RTX support but you’d think there was with the pristine level of lighting and reflections, and the HDR lighting made me want to install a sun visor on my TV. The nighttime racing, especially, showcases some of the best lighting and reflections you’ll see in a game this year. There is real-time weather during the day and night and the rain effects are incredible, both how it streaks and reflects in your headlights as well as beads up on your display, and those moments just after it rains, as the sun burns through the clouds and reflects off the puddles on the road are breathtaking.

The environment is massive and exquisitely detailed, creating a landscape I was continuously thrilled to be exploring. The seamless transitions from city to curvy mountain road to rolling hills, industrial areas, a massive marina full of yachts, and even the game’s own version of NASA kept me exploring for hours, often to the point where I would forget where I was supposed to be going for my next race. The vehicle modes are equally as perfect, both in their core design and when combined with a host of body part modifications, and don’t even get me started on the paint and wrap section where you can design your own custom art for your cars or visit the community library where thousands of designs await. You can spend so much time tweaking your cars they even have a companion app that will sync with the game and allow you to modify your cars on your mobile device.

The sound package is fantastic with a great selection of music you can cycle through using your car radio. The engine noises are great as are all the rest of the sounds of racing, skidding, crashing, and the great banter between the cops while chasing you. My only nitpick with the audio is that based on the sequence of the game you are in the same people keep calling you on your cell and repeating the same dialogue over and over again until you advance to the next part of the story.

You can probably race through the core story in 6-8 hours but if you truly want to complete Need for Speed Heat then prepare to spend 20+ hours checking off every last collectible on the map, and if you want to earn 3-stars on all the speed traps, drift zones, and race challenges maybe set aside 30+ hours. There is a world’s worth of stuff to do in this massive racing adventure. There is even multiplayer support where you can create or join a crew of up to 32 other racers and tackle this massive world as a group.

Need for Speed Heat gets back to basics with one of the best racing games I’ve played since Forza Horizon 4, and certainly one of the best Need for Speed games since the days of Carbon and Underground. There is so much to see and do in this game. The garage is epic, allowing you to customize every last part on your car (even the license plate frame). The split between day and night racing is more than visual; it represents two interlocked currencies that fuel the progression of the game and make Need for Speed Heat one of the best and most interesting racing games you can play this year.

Screenshot Gallery

Need for Speed Heat (stylized as NFS Heat) is a racing video game developed by Ghost Games and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It is the twenty-fourth installment in the Need for Speed series and commemorates the series' 25th anniversary. It was released on November 8, 2019. The game received mixed reviews from critics, who mostly found the game to be an improvement over the 2015 Need for Speed reboot and Payback but not enough to be a full return to form for the franchise.

Heat was Ghost Games' final game both for the Need for Speed franchise and as a lead developer. In February 2020, EA shifted development of the franchise back to Criterion Games—the developers of the Burnout series, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010) and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)—and reduced Ghost Games to an engineering studio for the Frostbite engine, reverting their name back to EA Gothenburg.

Gameplay[edit]

Need for Speed Heat is a racing game set in an open world environment called Palm City, a fictionalised version of the city Miami, Florida and its surrounding area. The in-game map features diverse geography, including mountainous areas and open fields.^[1] Unlike Need for Speed Payback, the game does not include a 24-hour day-night cycle, but players can switch between day and night. During the day, players can take part in sanctioned race events, which reward players with cash to spend on new cars and upgrades. They can also take part in illegal street races at night, which would earn players REP. The more REP a player earns, the more aggressive the police will be during the night. Players must escape the cops and get back to their safehouse, before they are busted, or their car is wrecked. When players return to a safehouse, the REP they have earned during the night will be multiplied by their "Heat Level". If players are arrested, they will lose their REP multiplier, but will still receive their unmultiplied REP. The REP multiplier mechanic works similarly to the Speed Points multiplier from Rivals. The game also features a storyline in which the players interact with the city’s police force, led by authority figure Lt. Frank Mercer.^[2][3][4] Players can smash neon flamingos hidden within the map, which rewards them with a small amount of money or rep depending on the time of day. They can also find graffiti, referred to as "Street Art" in the game, and send it to the livery editor to use it on their car(s). Lastly, they can complete activities around the open world such as smashing billboards, beating scores on drift zones, getting the highest speeds passing through speed traps, and going the longest distances when performing long jumps. Players may complete "Crew Time Trials" which allows them to complete short timed events in an attempt to get the #1 spot on the leaderboard in their crew.

The game features 127 cars from 33 manufacturers, with Ferrari returning to the game after being absent from Payback due to licensing issues.^[5] Unlike Payback, performance upgrades no longer come in random Speedcards and are unlocked by earning REP and winning races. The game will not feature loot boxes; however, time savers, which will reveal collectibles on the map, and paid downloadable content will be included.^[6]

Electronic Arts released the NFS Heat Studio app for iOS and Android devices. Users can collect and customise their cars which can be imported into the main game upon release.^[7][8]

On June 8, 2020, it was announced that the game would feature support for cross-platform play starting June 9 as part of the game's final patch.^[9]

Plot[edit]

The player (male player voiced by Andrew Lawrence, female player voiced by Jamie Gray Hyder)^[a] arrives in Palm City for the Speedhunter Showdown, a citywide exhibition which draws in racers to compete in legally sanctioned races throughout the day, and illegal street races throughout the night. Lt. Frank Mercer (Josh Coxx), leader of the police's High-Speed Task Force, announces his intent to ruthlessly pursue and arrest all street racers in the city. The player buys their first car from Lucas Rivera (Jonny Cruz), a local mechanic and retired street racer, who also helps the player enter their first Showdown race, and becomes their mechanic and mentor. Lucas's younger sister, Ana Rivera (Ana Marte), is a street racer whose crew recently disbanded after the task force nearly killed one of her friends.

Ana introduces the player to The League, an exclusive crew of Palm City's best street racers, which she aspires to join, and which Lucas almost joined until he suddenly quit racing after their father died. Ana and the player form a new crew to climb the ranks of Palm City's street racers and earn a place in The League. After winning a race, Ana and the player are confronted by Officer Shaw (Josh Collins) of Mercer's task force, who has Ana's Nissan 350Z impounded. When Ana calls the city about her car later, they claim to have no record of it.

The player and Ana race The Dreamkillers, another crew vying for The League's attention. After defeating them, they unexpectedly witness Shaw meeting Eva Torres (Shontae Saldana), another task force officer. Shaw shows Torres bags of money in the trunk of his car, extorted from street racers per Mercer's orders. Torres takes one of the bags but warns that Shaw and Mercer's brashness is endangering their unit's activities. Ana steals her father's 1967 Chevrolet Camaro from Lucas's shop so she can join the player in a final showdown against the Dreamkillers, but the race is interrupted by Shaw. The player wrecks Shaw's car, scattering the money from Shaw's trunk onto the street, which creates a publicized spectacle and raises public suspicion about Mercer's and the High-Speed Task Force. However, Lucas is angered by Ana using their father's car without permission.

Ana and the player are contacted by Torres, who admits that the High-Speed Task Force is corrupt, but wishes to have Mercer taken down because he's become too reckless. Torres leads them to a warehouse that acts as an illegal chop shop, stripping cars seized by the High-Speed Task Force, or preparing them to be shipped out of the city. Ana realizes her 350Z has already been processed after finding its license plate.

The player and Ana enlist The League's help to expose Mercer's activity by crashing a publicity event for the Showdown, and leading the police and local media to the warehouse. En route, they are ambushed by the High-Speed Task Force, and news reporters find the warehouse empty. Ana and the player evade the police and return to Lucas's garage to find him bound and tortured by Mercer, who holds them at gunpoint. Mercer reveals he anticipated the Player's plans after observing them on a security camera in his shop. Mercer forces the player and Ana into his police car, but Lucas, having escaped his bonds, intercepts them in his father's Camaro and rams Mercer's car. Ana steals Mercer's laptop and escapes with Lucas and the player. Lucas takes them to a new hideout on the city's outskirts and admits to Ana the reason he quit street racing was that he believes that their father had his fatal heart attack after hearing about him being arrested for street racing that same night.

Ana and Lucas send incriminating files from Mercer's computer to various outlets, proving his corruption and forcing him into hiding, then learn that Mercer is preparing to have the stolen cars in his possession shipped out of Palm City before fleeing as well. As they do not know which cops are complicit or innocent, Ana and Lucas convince The League and other crews across the city to simultaneously goad and draw as many police cars as they can to the port where the cars are being loaded. Confronted by the swarm of police and street racers, Mercer attempts to escape in the BMW M3 GTR from the 2005 Need for Speed: Most Wanted. The player chases down and wrecks Mercer's car, leaving him to be confronted by Torres, who pulls her pistol in response to his threats and is implied to have shot him.

Over a week later, Mercer is missing and presumed dead. Torres has been promoted to lead the High-Speed Task Force, and she announces her commitment to end street racing in Palm City. Lucas, having reconciled with Ana, gives her the keys to their father's repaired Camaro. The player and Ana, now members of The League, plan to continue racing and tackle any future challenges together.

Development[edit]

The game was revealed with a trailer released on August 14, 2019,^[12] followed-up by a gameplay trailer released on August 20, 2019.^[13] It was released on November 8, 2019.^{[14][15][16][17][18][19]} Following EA's decision to downsize developer Ghost Games, Criterion Games took over the development of the game's post-launch content. An update in June 2020 enabled cross-platform play between PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, making it the first EA game to have this feature.^[20]

Reception[edit]

This section is missing information about the game's strong and weak points that were highlighted by the individual review sites. Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(April 2020)

Need for Speed Heat received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregatorMetacritic.^[21][22][23]

Accolades[edit]

The game was nominated for "Best Racing Game" at the Gamescom Awards,^[32] and won the award for "Game, Franchise Racing" at the NAVGTR Awards, whereas its other nomination was for "Song Collection".^[33]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

EA has announced that Criterion Games, the studio responsible for the highly enjoyable Burnout games as well as previous Need for Speed entries like Most Wanted and Rivals, will be spearheading production of the next title in the long running Need for Speed franchise.

In an announcement on the EA website, General Manager at Criterion Games Matt Webster confirmed this update and are excited in “bringing Criterion’s unique point of view, unparalleled game feel, and high quality innovations that will chart a new future for this wonderful series of games.”

Along with this announcement, Need for Speed Heat will be having cross play starting June 9, allowing all users to race with each other, whether on the PS4, Xbox One, or PC.

At Criterion, we’ve always believed that games are better with friends. We don’t want your platform of choice to be a barrier for that experience.

Need for Speed Heat will be premiering on EA Access come June 16 and will also release on Steam in the near future. Tune in to EA Play on June 18 for more announcements from the Need for Speed franchise and from EA in general.