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EA Celebrates "Need for Speed" 30th Anniversary with Y2 "NFS: Unbound" Roadmap

T0@st

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Surprise! We're still here, and not just here - we have a whole year's worth of content coming to you! NFS turns 30 this year, and with that huge legacy, we couldn't stand idle. However, this year will be a bit different from the previous one. Because here's the thing—the NFS legacy signifies different things to each and every one of you. Some of you were there at the start of it all on Road and Track. Some of you will remember taking on the Eastsiders in Olympic City or smashing your way through the Blacklist in Rockport. Or you might have started playing more recently. Hustling by day and risking it all by night in Palm City. No matter your memory, we all have a shared love of NFS, and we want to build new memories over the next 12 months.

But, we'll be honest and admit we can't build everything everyone wants right now, but we can decide together what NFS should be in the future. Our vision is that through our second year of live service, you can, for the first time, begin to play the ultimate NFS experience in one place. Your feedback and gameplay will help shape the future of this iconic franchise. As you play, we will be listening, observing and reacting to the things you want to see and those you don't. It's an approach that we're calling Kaizen.




Kaizen is a Japanese term that means change for better or continuous improvement. We feel this really encapsulates what we want to do with NFS, and we want to make you, our players and fans, a key part of it too. So how are we doing this?:

Evolving Volumes
We're committing to adding four new volumes of content in the next year, each launching every few months. We aim to deliver some exciting themed updates, with at least one new major mode added to each volume. We will also continue to build on and evolve with each time. Adding more events, more challenges, new content, Ranks to earn, and new progression to chase. We will deliver at least two new fully customizable cars as part of the Speed Pass. And when we say cars, we mean cars in the NFS sense, like no one else creates. We aren't just talking base models here and stock paint there; we are talking cars that come with fully customizable body kits with a myriad of interchangeable parts so you can tweak your ride just the way you want it.

Most Requested Bug Fixes and Improvements
We really want to be fixing and focusing on the things that you all care about most (like adding realistic driving effects last December), but as a small team, we need to prioritize where we spend our time, and it will always focus on what we feel is best for you all. Every improvement we try to make is a trade-off between something new and something different. So we'll be closely monitoring your comments and feedback and coming to you with regular communications about what we're learning along the way.

Premium Speed Pass
Starting with Volume 6, we are introducing an all-new premium track to the Speed Pass that will grant you instant access to one of our hot new vehicles and unlock the ability to earn all its deep customisation content. It also includes custom versions of the vehicle, and it's where you can find our hottest new customisation options each season. Refining our Speed Pass this way is how we can keep delivering unique new content and gameplay to you through a more simplified approach. If that's not your thing, though, we will still be offering a free track of the Speed Pass with new vehicles and customizations for you to enjoy.

Always Be Learning
We see this as a year to test and learn and understand what works best for you. Committing to an extended Unbound live service allows us to really build on feedback, which we'll be gathering in a few ways. We're working closely with a dedicated Player Council - a great bunch of NFS influencers, core community members, and players to understand what's important to them and their communities. We'll be increasing the amount of telemetry we track from the games to better understand through gameplay data what's working for you. And we'll look to close the feedback loop by being as transparent as possible with you, letting you know what we've heard and what we can and can't do.

Ok, you made it! Closing time. We hope more than ever that all fans of NFS can come join us as we continue to deliver updates to NFS Unbound. We might just have some nice surprises along the way as we take a tongue-in-cheek look back in the rearview before we drop a gear and power forward into the future together, testing, refining and constantly improving along the way!

This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible. For more information, please refer to EA's Online Service Updates at https://www.ea.com/service-updates.

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Getting old ...
I was already there for the 1st one !

This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible.
Ok ... but what if the community is packed with a big bunch of stupids ?
 
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Hi,
30 years, really wow time flies.
 
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I started with NFS2SE. That brings back memories.
High stakes and porsche unleashed is where most of my nostalgia lies running a Voodoo 3 based system.
Logged a lot of hours in NFSU2 in the mid- win Xp days too. Rocked that game with a mobile Barton 3200+
 
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I started with NFS2SE. That brings back memories.
High stakes and porsche unleashed is where most of my nostalgia lies running a Voodoo 3 based system.
Logged a lot of hours in NFSU2 in the mid- win Xp days too. Rocked that game with a mobile Barton 3200+

Porsche unleashed up until blacklist was a great time for arcade style racing games. It’s a shame where things have ended up.
 
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ill get unbound when it's (including dlc) max 7.50
 

Easy Rhino

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NFSHP3 was the game that started it all for me on the PS1. Sooooo many awesome evenings playing split screen with my friends.
 
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My favorite NFS is nfs road challenge or high stakes. Love that game. I still play nfs 3 on my my windows 11 pc.
 
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Cool shout outs to the classic games there, EA. Games that you no longer can obtain anywhere legally (except for scouring Ebay for old disks, I guess) since you decided that you don’t want to pony up the cash for extending the licenses, I guess. But you did spend money to remaster the 2010 Hot Pursuit… for some reason that to this day I cannot comprehend. Not Underground. Not Most Wanted. Not remake some of the older games from scratch, like a new and modernized with newer cars and eras Porsche Unleashed. No. Hot Pursuit 2010. One of the most “eh, ‘salright I suppose” games in the series.
EA. Truly, challenging everything, even reason.
 
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I still have the NFS-underground soundtrack in rotation.

Any good music in the new one?
I mean, music is very much a matter of taste, but Unbounds OST is so… uh, let’s say “modern youth oriented” that it spawned countless memes.
 

wolf

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Currently replaying Underground 2 on my XP retro rig, man that game still plays so well.
 
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I know, car license issues, but if you dare to challenge everything, and if you bother to shoutout to that era, a UG/MW2005/Carbon remaster, please? Prostreet is also fine too. (provided you fix the horrible input lag / numb steering.) Yes, I finished Prostreet on a Xbox360 recently, and it was very flawed, but much better than what I remembered.

For soundtracks, I have all these (alongside Unbound, minus Carbon) that I sometimes will use. Unbound soundtrack is ... meh, with one horribly memetic, and two very serious techno tracks that I would love them to death.
 
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Kind of amazing how the nfs games on psx were when you take a look back. The winxp era of nfs games were good times.
 

OneMoar

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bad physics are bad no ammount of `live service` will fix bad gameplay
 
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HEY EA! Happy NFS Anniversary! Why in the hell would you do updates to the most hated game in the NFS series that doesn’t work for people who plays on PC? This would have been a GREAT opportunity to do a remastered NFS Underground 2 or NFS Underground Carbon(my favorite out of the series) ORRRR NFS Most wanted(not that bullshit version you call a remake)
 
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What a load of BS. Another MTX garbage, that will be abandoned and server locked in a couple of years. ElectronicFarts lost the vision, completely. The Shutoko Revival Project for Assetto Corsa is better than this tastless absurd. This is only my opinion, though.

But the best way to celebrate this anniversary, would be return to the roots, and original design started with NFS Road & Tracks. That little magazine promotional "addon" was more of a game, than any late MTX simulator that carries NFS moniker. It was fun, it had exotic cars, with showcases and car data, and authentic cockpits. It was rivaling the GranTurismo, so the result was remarkable. Now EA bought the last decent racing studio, and they no longer challenge other racing games. They don't have to, anymore. Heck they could release all the classic NFS games, might even in one "Remaster Collection", and that would be one of the best decisions and celebration of such big anniversary.

The NFS3 with tons of modding capabilities and fun driving, and glossy models, and great Pursuit Mode. The trend peaked at Porsche Unleashed another promotional product, that appeared the most complete NFS game ever done. It had real 3D car showrooms, history, and car details, decent physics and damage, 360° view angle, the turn/emergency signals, convertable roof, the evolution mode, fine music, and just brilliant FFB. And all of that about 24 years ago. The remaster with better graphics, and with the option to add custom maps and cars would be a dream though.
Some may complain, that NFS PU had atrocious tyre model... but let's be honest, modern NFS games don't have any tyre model at all. They are just dumb tram simulator, Burnout Paradise with license cars and loads of MTX.

The Hot Stakes was seems also fun game, a mix of NFS3 with PU physics. But the one of the most overlooked vintage, is NFS VI: Hot Pursuit 2. Excluding the absence of cockpit, that game had everything the true NFS needs. The sound was great, the physics was fun, it was pleasant to drive and look at. After that, the came the era of stagnation and décadence.

The Underground 1 was fun, but it lacked physics badly. Same goes for U2. The Most Wanted was great game either, but along with Carbon it had the locked content and was bug riddled. The physics was atrocious either, and after some time the game became boring. Even the support for then new G25 and it's H-Shifter didn't help much. The ugly colour filter and the motion blur did the disservice either.
If only EA didn't split the Blackbox on two projects, and let them finish both games, with graphics and physics of Pro Street, the Undercover could be really the masterpiece.
Once, EA was even recoding the authentic car engine sounds, for each game. After Underground series it's all gone.
 
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