Need for Speed Rivals is a racing video game developed in a collaboration between Ghost Games and Criterion Games, and published by Electronic Arts. It is the twentieth installment in the Need for Speed series and the debut title for Ghost Games, who would be established as the primary developer of the series for all subsequent non-mobile installments up until 2020. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in November 2013, and is the final Need for Speed game for both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. Players take on the role of a Racer or Cop, with each side of the law offering its own play style.
After the commercial and critical success of 2010’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Criterion Games executives stated that they wanted to draw from the series’ roots and re-introduce old Need for Speed ideals. With EA Canada and Black Box restructured and refocused towards online and free-to-play games in February 2012, EA had already formed a new studio in 2011, EA Gothenburg (later known as Ghost Games), who decided to use the Frostbite 3 engine for Rivals. On 30 August 2013, Ghost Games head Marcus Nilsson stated that the studio had been given complete charge of the Need for Speed franchise and that the franchise being bounced between multiple EA studios was not “consistent” with different game types.
Need for Speed Rivals features a dynamic weather system
Need for Speed Rivals is a racing game and features gameplay similar to earlier Need for Speed titles, such as Criterion’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.[5] Players take on the role of a Racer or Cop, with each side of the law offering its own play style.[6]Rivals features eleven upgradeable gadgets such as EMPs, shockwaves, spike strips, and the ability to call in roadblocks.[5] The game takes place in a fictional location known as Redview County.[7] The open world environment features a similar set-up to Most Wanted, with several jumps, speed traps, and unlockable cars, as well as shortcuts that are not shown on the map.[8][9]
Rivals features a career progression system for both Cop and Racer.[10] Progression is made by means of Speedlists for Racer and Assignments for Cop, which are sets of objectives which involve dangerous driving, maneuvers, and race standings. Upon completion of each set of objectives, the player levels up and unlocks new content, and is presented with another set of objectives to choose from.[11]
The Autolog system, a competition-between-friends system, developed by Criterion for Hot Pursuit, records the player’s completion time for each event, Speedlist or Assignment. These times are posted to Speed Walls for local and global leaderboards to be compared to other players’ times.[11]
Rivals features a new social system called the AllDrive, which allows players to transition from playing alone, to playing with friends, described as “destroying the line between single player and multiplayer”. This allows players to engage in co-op gameplay as well as play against each other.[6] The game also features a dynamic weather system, which makes “the world feel alive in a much bigger sense than any other Need for Speed game”.[5]
Rivals also takes on some gameplay features of earlier Underground titles in the franchise with cues on aesthetic vehicle personalization, such as paint jobs, decals, rims and license plates and liveries can be modified, as well as vehicle performance, and various ‘Pursuit Tech’ gadgets.[8][12] With the exception for the Aston Martin Vanquish (and most DLC cars), all cars in the game are only available in either the racer or police variant.
