NEED FOR SPEED
Hot pursuit goes offline, and off-road
Back in 2015 Ghost Games rebooted Need For Speed. You may have missed it. Many did. What you need to know is the reboot took the series back to its night-racing, urban tuner roots, which was great, but added a game-breaking always-online function, even when solo racing, which was bad. News coming out of Ghost Games is that it’s listened, and the need to always be online has been dropped.
Just as exciting is the mention of taking the street racing offroad, with dusty canyons and gravelly deserts looking like potential settings alongside the hot tarmac. The dusky art released to announce the game, with a Nissan 350Z parked up and bathed in the orange sun’s glow, also suggests races will take place during the day. In fact, Ghost makes it clear in its statement that the environment will become a more important ingredient in this year’s game.
It sounds like you’ll be using jumps to outrun the police. As Ghost puts it: “We’re building the world, but what you do in it is the aspect that excites us most.” You’ll need to exploit those stunt opportunities, as police chases will escalate fast. As you continue to outrun your police pursuers, cop Corvettes will make way for Rhino armoured tanks.
Customisation is also back, with new tuning options and deeper levels of interaction promised, so if you are concerned that the Need For Speed series might lose its ability to make your bog-standard Ford Focus look like a Hot Wheels toy supercar, fear not.
Ghost Games has paid attention to fans – Need For Speed could be the real reboot we want.
We’ll have more trackside news on Need For Speed next issue, on sale 4 July.