Relive the original thrill of the chase in Vol. 8: Cops vs. Racers* (inspired by NFS Hot Pursuit), as we continue to deliver the Ultimate NFS Experience in one place for the first time. This volume brings back the classic Hot Pursuit mode with 4 vs 4 gameplay between Cops and Racers, where you play on both sides to see who really owns the streets. This includes the use of Pursuit Tech which is unlocked in a new Cop Progression system.


Joining the party for megacop vs hypercar clashes in Lakeshore are the fully customizable Porsche 959 S ‘87 and new meta-car candidate, the Lotus Evija ‘23. The League is refreshed with new opponents, and as always, there’s a new Speed Pass with an optional Premium track offering 75 total tiers of unlockable customization content.


The Vol. 8 Premium Speed Pass** immediately grants the new, fully customizable Porsche 959 S ‘87 and opens up access to its three bodykits, alongside an additional four Rare Custom versions of the new cars arriving in this volume, including two original Speedhunters designs and an NFS Legends custom. You'll also gain access to unlocking sick, new customization options - including cop customization, like bumper guards and message bars, for the first time ever in Unbound. There’s a few goodies inside for the more street racer-minded opps too. There are 30 total tiers of content to unlock in this premium track.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1846380/Need_for_Speed_Unbound/



"*Requires NFS Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates to play.
**Premium Speed Pass Content requires Premium Speed Pass and Need for Speed Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates. Requires gameplay to unlock. You must log in before the end of Volume 8 to claim your reward. Failure to log in and claim during this period will result in forfeiting the reward."

Yo! Hope you are all enjoying taking it back to the Underground in Vol. 7: Drift & Drag.
It's been awesome to see the responses to Vol. 7 so far…. but…. as per Kaizen…. there are always improvements to be made.

We also know there are a couple of things that need addressing still, that aren't on this list. One of those being PVP doors not always taking you to the correct playlist. Rest assured we are working on this and other issues still.

That being said, the team as always have been kicking quality of life and bug arse! and we’re back to provide you with a fresh serving of improved goodness.

Check below from some of the headliners and the full list of fixes below that. This will likely be our last update for Vol 7 (apart from any spot fixes like PVP doors above) as we are full force on Vol. 8!
As always please keep the feedback coming. Thank you for the support, the honesty, and sharing some of the most tyre slaying, Drift-chaining, Drag-playing content we have ever seen! As always, appreciate you all!

Team Kaizen, Criterion Games


Playlist Improvements

• SOLO PLAYLISTS IN FREE ROAM! Reduced the required players in a lobby to start a gamemode from 2 -> 1
  
• If you want to play a playlist and other peeps on the server are busy or in another event you can now play it still yourself. This should also help with those challenges that you might have had trouble ticking off or if you just want to play your favorite track.
  
• Adding back removed playlists
  
• A bit of context: This was actually a bunch of playlists that were hardly ever played as per our telemetry and we wanted to not overload the meetups. Also in terms of events, nothing was removed bar Colossus (which got removed as a race playlist due to it being a Darkhorse specific route for Vol7) HOWEVER! Heard you all loud and clear and all playlists are coming back in for you to enjoy especially now with being able to play an event without needing another real world player.

Drift Pro Improvements

• Fixed a bug in which Chaining bonuses were applied incorrectly and reduced the score awarded per chain
  
• Twin drift now depends on BOTH players drifting, instead of just the scoring player

Drag Improvements

• Don't allow players who are on the starting grid of a drag race to manually reset on track so that they do not end up respawned in unideal positions
  
• Teleport players back to the starting grid after tire warmup if they have slid forward in some vehicles in Drag

League Improvements

• Fixed an issue with no progress shown in Frontend Garage
  
• Fixed an issue with the in-game HUD League-Progress showing 1st completed Racer instead of latest when next Rival is locked
  
• Fixed Drag-event rounds listings shown on Playlist card

• Added HKS and KUMHO decals to the wrap editor

• Fixed the Player Rank display in the banner and some other places for Ranks 201+
  
• The 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse is missing the additional default Criterion body kit, it will now be unlocked when purchasing the vehicle
  
• Fixed corruption on animated LED wheel LODs
  
• Origin Trail added - Original smoke with light trails
  
• Fixed incorrect perfect start values in regular street races
  
• Fixed the PS5 haptics issue
  
• We had noticed some issues with PS5 haptics not being as powerful or working at all in some circumstances. Fixed now
  
• Skip track - Fixed skip track not functioning in events (D-Pad Right/Page-Up)
  
• PVP Drag - Half & Quarter mile playlist cards show only the reverse rounds (2,4,6)
  
• Fixed issue with objectives not appearing as completed when viewing the League tab from the lobby screen
  
• Fixed an issue with League 1v1 playlist only showing rounds 1 and 3 in the playlist card
  
• Fixed league banner showing car reward icon for racers that do not reward cars
  
• Fixed - Melissa's Custom Eclipse GSX '99 is missing Air Trails
  
• Fixed - Ford Mustang Dark Horse's spoiler is missing one Air Trail when the user equips one of the Big Country Labs Spoiler
  
• Fixed Speed Pass XP bar overflows when leveling up in return to garage Speed pass XP gained Screen
  
• Fixed - The Banner title "Hashiriya" and "Drift-Zoku" appear duplicated in the Banner titles menu, one locked and one unlocked after completing the required one shot challenges
  
• Fixed the camera position in Speed pass carousel being kept in the same place for the next previewed reward
  
• Fixed - User cannot scroll through playlist list in meetup after own invite expires and there is another active invite
  
• Fixed - Drift Pro & Drag Playlists - Finish line countdown timer SFX missing in drag events
  
• Fixed - Vol7 Playlist invite sticker appears and disappears for ongoing invite while scrolling through playlists in meetup
  
• Fixed - The underglows unlocked through Speed Pass are not visible to other players on the server
  
• Fixed - Available for playlist widget overlaps the Community Goal within the Leagues menu when opened via the Deploy/In-game Map
  
• Fixed - Challenges - "Hit 200mph/321kph in a Drag event" is displaying 0/0 before and after completion
  
• A number of additional stability, bug and quality issues

• PVP Doors not always taking you to the correct playlist
  
• Ok so this is a tricky one! Firstly, we had difficulty reproducing this in our development environment. As a small team we didn't see this issue when we artificially scaled our environments for testing, but the magical combination of lots of players performing actions at certain times, has made this issue occur now when the feature is live.
  
• On top of that, we are doing different things with our matchmaking systems which haven't been done before and this has exposed issues that we need to work with external teams to fix.
  
• We think we understand what the issue is now and the team is working super hard on ways to fix it with other partners outside of the dev team. As soon as we do, you will hear about it. Thanks for sticking with us on this one. We know it's frustrating (we feel it too!)

As always, we’d love your feedback. Head to the community-run Subreddit and Discord[discord.gg] to join the community conversation, or follow us directly on Instagram[www.instagram.com], Twitter, TikTok,[www.tiktok.com] and Facebook[www.facebook.com] for the latest news and updates.
Need Help?
We got you. Hit up Answers HQ, where you can report bugs or issues for a member of the team to check out.

Missed the Vol. 6 Speed Pass? The Vol. 6 Dynamic Catch-Up Pack grants instant access to the first 45 tiers of content (including the Audi R8 Coupé '19 and S5 Sportback '17). For Vol. 6 Premium Speed Pass owners, it also grants access to the additional 30 tiers of premium content.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2856160/Need_for_Speed_Unbound__Vol6_Dynamic_CatchUp_Pack/

Additionally, you can get instant access to the car from the Vol. 6 Premium Speed Pass with the Audi RS 6 Avant ‘20 Set, complete with all three bodykits.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2926920/Need_for_Speed_Unbound__Audi_RS_6_Avant_20_Set/

*Requires Need for Speed Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates.

Badadum dum dum, ba dada dada dum, OOOOO! We are back! Vol. 7: Drift & Drag!* This time inspired by one of your favorites and ours, the NFS Underground series. We’ve put an emphasis on gameplay here, with Drift and Drag modes blending old and new and a new League progression that will update with new racers over the course of the volume which you can work your way through online. We have wrapped lots of small Underground-inspired details in lots of areas so see what you can spot! Check below for the full deets and as always, we appreciate you all!

~ Team Kaizen, Criterion Games



Ok! Building towards our goal of creating the Ultimate NFS Experience in one place, we are bringing back some beloved game modes that have a touch of the old inspired by Underground and a remix of the new. First up…..

A personal favorite of ours (especially mine! -John) 4 players on the start grid, engines revving, tires smoking, eyes interlocking, did someone say something about family? Anyway…. we go back to the ways of the Underground with things like lane switching and manual gear shifting at just the right spot, while adding some new, with tire warm up sequence to gain you Burst Nos. You will see we have blended the old and the new too, with things like the rev counter and gear change UI. Now, we know our world was not built for Drag from the start but! we have sourced some of the best routes in Lakeshore to give that Underground vibe. Want to live out your fantasy a ¼ mile at a time? We got you, some variation for the mode includes, ½ mile, ¼ mile and some longer strips. We are super pumped to be able to bring this mode back into the NFS fray and a truly different way of playing where it's about quick fingers and feet down!

Ok we heard you on the Drift and this is something we have been cooking for a bit. When playing in a Drift Pro event or when out and about in Free Roam, if you have Drift Pro Tires equipped you will now see how you get a much more natural and analogue Drift occurring, deeper angles, longer drift, a much greater sense of being able to feel when the car is going to lose control, allowing you to chain drifts together and really slay some tires!

In the mode itself we have taken big inspiration from Underground with our more streamlined scoring multiplier and chaining but added in some new with twin drifting i.e. drifting in tandem with other players. Don't worry though! Collisions are off but let us know if you would like to see some playlists with them on? Drift Pro events will be 8 players and the goal is to smash out the biggest score possible.

Drift Pro tires need to be equipped to your vehicle in order to take part in Drift Pro events, they aren't going to break the bank and I think you guys have enough cash in the game already right?! Don't worry if you do not have any to start though, of course borrow a loaner from good old Rydell and and test the mode out. Once you do have your new Drift shoes though, you can take your ride for a spin, out on the streets of Lakeshore and experience it in a whole new sideways manner!

Bringing some Single player progression flavor into online. Leagues is a, well, League…. to climb up to the top of. Harking back to more simpler progression times and for this volume, inspired by the URL (Underground Racing League) of NFS Underground.

Complete the challenges to unlock the opportunity to take on the racers of Lakeshore (watch out for Ross) in a one on one Drag race. Beat them and you move up the League. New racers to take on will be released over the course of the volume, so make sure you check back in each week to see who is next on the list to beat. There are select Rival Racer vehicles to own too when you beat them in the 1v1’s. 12 racers to beat totally. Well actually……13 but check the community challenge for that!

Again something new for Unbound in Vol7 is the community challenge. The idea? Take on the community challenge of sticking it to the Cops. Fulfill the challenge and…..well…. there are some murmurings that the person setting up the challenges may grace us with their presence and have one of their customs up for grabs….you will want to make sure you work as a community though, we hear this mysterious racer likes to switch up their ride, so it might not be around to grab forever. Community challenge will go live during the volume so keep an eye out!

New volume means of course, new races, new Legends playlist and now including Drag and Drift.

• 37 Additional Playlists
  
• 20 Drift Pro Routes - 10 new 10 remixed
  
• 37 Drag Routes (All new Routes)
  
• 10 Brand new race routes for the NFS Legends Playlists. This includes being able to drive in Eddie’s and Rachel’s icon Skyline and 350z.
  
• 4 Equal Performance Playlists for the new Ford Mustang Dark Horse ‘24
  
• 4 Equal Performance Playlists for the new BMW M3 Competition Touring ‘23

New races and events can be played in Free Roam as they can in PVP. Additionally you can equip Drift Pro tires to then take to the streets of Lakeshore. In order to make things a little easier to find too, you will see that meetups now how specific event types:

• University Meetup contains Drift Pro Events
  
• Storm Drain Meetup contains Drag Events
  
• Powderhound Meetup contains Drift, Gauntlet, and Rumble Events
  
• Dunder M Park contains Car-Locked Events (Nissan only, Audi only, etc.)
  
• Motor City B and A+ Tier Street Races
  
• Jeferson Meetup A and S Tier Street Races
  
• Edgewater S+ Tier Street Races

Max rank will now be increased to 250! Think of these new 50 ranks as more exclusive, Underground themed and accompanied by Rank icons, titles and banner art unlocking every 10 ranks.




There is a crazy amount of cars both new and custom up for grabs in this volume!
Keeping it wagon alongside the RS6 from volume 6 is the BMW M3 Competition Touring ‘23, and bringing more horses than the Cheltenham races (it's a UK thing give it a google) the absolute brute that is the Ford Mustang Dark Horse ‘24. Of course both come with our updated handling model you will have tired with our Audi’s in Vol 6. Full breakdown:

• *** Added Ford Mustang Dark Horse ‘24 w/ 3 bodykits
  
• ^ Added BMW M3 Competition Touring ‘23 w/ 3 bodykits
  
• *** Melissa’s Custom Mitsubishi Eclipse from Need For Speed Underground
  
• *** Speedhunters Drift Custom BMW M3 Competition Touring ‘23
  
• *** Speedhunters Drag Custom Ford Mustang Dark Horse ‘24
  
• ^ Need For Speed Underground series inspired Drag BMW M3 Competition Touring ‘23
  
• *** Need For Speed Underground series inspired Drift Ford Mustang Dark Horse ‘24
  
• / 4 Lakeshore Racer vehicles (check back each week for what!)
  
• / Community Challenge Custom….???

*** Available in Premium Speed Pass
^ Available in Free Speed Pass
/ Available for free in Leagues play in Freeroam

Of course there is more than Cars up for grabs though! Some ridiculously sick new customisation options have been added. We really wanted to celebrate the Underground series this volume and mix some old skool things with new tech….

• Added LED Rims - Check out our teasing to see them in action more but think GIf playing on your rims as you drive and you spin the wheel more. A bunch here inspired by NFS Underground!
  
• Added LED Plates - A similar thing but wheel spinning is not required! Check out again some of the crazy Underground series nods
  
• Added Beat-matched Rim - Ok this one is pretty crazy, equip this and the waveform displayed on the LED rim will change depending on the beat of the music playing…see to believe!
  
• New decal: Ode to Neville - As a nod to our fallen brother Chris Gauthier who played Neville in Need For Speed Carbon, we have added his iconic Octopus decal. Show us your creations with this. Love and prayers with his family and those that knew him, R.I.P Chris.
  
• Added spinners - Wouldn't be Underground without Spinner right? New twist here is that we are rocking them on LED rims! Check them out in the Speed Pass
  
• Added new rims - New real rims! There are 6 new rims up for grabs in the pass too, all free and and with some brands like Rotiform
  
• Added new Premium VFX - Rip up the Road (for drifting) and Burn up the Road (for drag racing) - 2 New driving effects with some variations of each for you to slay some tires with in style.
  
• Added New Titles - There are a whole bunch of new titles to unlock, fully hitting on the vibes of the past too! What way to pledge your allegiance to your fav NFS of old than slamming it in people's faces on the results screen!
  
• And of course a whole lot more:
  
  • Plates
    
  • Decals
    
  • Transparent turbo fans
    
  • Underglows
    
  • Character skins
    
  • And projections
    
  • XP boosts
    
  • Twin smoke

With this we heard how it can be super frustrating when you crash, do not get auto reset and are then left alone….in the cold…out of the action. Well fear not! Manual reset is here, Manual reset is enabled in checkpoint game modes in the following situations:

1. Player is facing the wrong way and speed is under 30mph
   
2. Speed is under 30mph

A prompt will appear depending on your platform of choice and you can get back into the action!

This is to improve curb reactions at high speed, we hear you on the issues here and have tried something to help without having to change our whole handling model.

• Fixed a bug where the next Speed Pass reward would show the wrong award when the player had exactly enough XP to complete rank 1
  
• Banner rewards now only shown in the MP reward screen
  
• Fixed PS5 Dolby Atmos support
  
• Fixed resetting at high speed on "Gotta be Shittin' Me" so you don't go flying off the track after being reset
  
• The Audi R8 is now awarded at the start of the game, like all other speedpass cars
  
• More CPU spike reductions, specifically targeted at activities in the open world and circuit game modes.
  
• Fixed lobby invites sometimes not showing the "new" sticker when they should be
  
• Fix collectable XP notifications sometimes showing the wrong value
  
• Fixed a bug where the camera would try to avoid a car the player has no collision with in Drift events
  
• Fixed an issue where players would rarely not receive a Speed Pass reward when switching console / savegame
  
• Fixed an issue in MP when some of the cops that were in an active pursuit of a player would stop seeing them if another nearby player left the server

Still here? Good, it's a packed one right?! Before you go, I just wanted to say, from myself (John) and the whole of the Kaizen team on NFS and at Criterion, we appreciate you, we see you and we hope you like this Underground inspired Vol 7. We know that we won't have hit everything you guys would love to see from back in the hayday, or that it's exactly one to one, but honestly that's not the point. Hopefully you see how we are adding towards our mission of learning what the best NFS destination in one place looks like for all of you. So! Please keep the feedback up, please keep showing us your creations and play…..and as Eddie would say “Let's do this! It's on!” see you on the streets!

We got you. Hit up Answers HQ, where you can report bugs or issues for a member of the team to check out.
Be sure to follow Need for Speed on Twitter, Facebook[www.facebook.com], Instagram [www.instagram.com]and TikTok [www.tiktok.com]for the latest news.

*Requires NFS Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates.

**Premium Speed Pass Content requires Premium Speed Pass and Need for Speed Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates. Requires gameplay to unlock. You must log in before the end of Vol. 7 to claim your reward. Failure to log in and claim during this period will result in forfeiting the reward.

Discover new feels for classic skills in Need for Speed Unbound Vol. 7: Drift & Drag (inspired by NFS Underground), as we continue on the journey to deliver the ultimate NFS experience in one place for the first time.

This volume reintroduces Drift and Drag modes along with League progression, all updated for the modern era, and is complemented by the arrival of the fully customizable Ford Mustang Dark Horse '24 and BMW M3 Competition Touring '23. New Drift mode comes with improved handling for Drift builds, while Drag mode revives manual gear shifting and lane switching skills.

The League, a revamped progression system that’s intended to enrich the single player experience in Free Roam, has players challenging new Rival Racers throughout the volume in head-to-head competition to win their cars.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1846380/Need_for_Speed_Unbound/

As always, a new Speed Pass and optional Premium track offers 75 total tiers of unlockable customization content. A Premium Speed Pass is available as well.

*Requires NFS Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates.

Patch 6.1.0 is a small, “quality of life” update that addresses a few issues and improvements based on the feedback you’ve given us so far. Before we get into the details, we’ve also already deployed some changes to Dedicated PVP and Free Drive.

We received a lot of great feedback on our new dedicated PVP mode. We are thrilled that everyone is enjoying it so much, but we know it can always be better. We heard that the most dedicated of you want some adjustments and changes. While we aren't able to deploy a major update right now, we have introduced some changes in line with that feedback. So from now, you will notice that the playlist rotation will update daily. The featured playlists will still stay for a week so that everyone can get the chance to enjoy them, but the Tier playlists will now change daily between Tiers B, A, A+, S and S+. We also haven't forgotten about Free Roam, and we heard that the time between Linkups was still too long. So we have halved that time for you all.

With those changes made, we are now following up with this last update for Vol. 6 before we fully turn our focus to delivering Vol. 7 for you all. Details of the fixes and improvements are below.

Team Kaizen, Criterion Games





Allow players to go directly to MP Garage after leaving PVP

When leaving PVP, players will now be put straight back to the Multiplayer garage. So less steps and straight to where you want to be. We debated taking you straight back to the PVP screen, but we don’t know what you want to do. Maybe you want to work on your setup, or drop into Free Roam. We leave that choice up to you, but we removed the extra steps.

All Nitrous auxiliary items stop working if the player changes vehicles during playlists or if they leave the server and rejoin

Fixed!

Users are reporting extreme flickering present in-game

We’ve made some changes that should address this issue. Specifically, moved TileLighting and NFS-SSR passes to the cached depth buffer usage since all those passes are on the GPU async queue and there is a chance of inter-referencing. This also fixes a known problem on AMD Vega GPUs.


Improve the Idle Kick for players not progressing - PVP specific change

Okay, so on the level… players finding loopholes in XP earning is all part of the game, but players hanging idle in PVP lobbies means fewer people competing and more roadblocks at the start/finish line. Players will now be warned if their mean velocity is under 1mph, and get an idle kick after 60 seconds if they don’t take action. Essentially if you ain’t racing in PVP, then you are outta here.


Fixed an issue where players could use their own vehicles in a playlist that should be loaner vehicles only

Fixed an issue in Story Mode, where attempting to back away from the Speed Pass menu would send the user to the pause menu instead of the garage

Fixed an issue where underglows unlocked through Speed Pass were not visible to other players on the server

Fixed an issue where PVP lobby playlist tier would show as tier B instead of correct playlist tier

Fixed an issue where users could navigate around menus when in Find Game menu

Fixed a camera issue that would cause changes to the player’s camera when another car was close behind
Need help?
We got you. Hit up Answers HQ, where you can report bugs or issues for a member of the team to check out.
Be sure to follow Need for Speed on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok for the latest news.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1846380/Need_for_Speed_Unbound/

*Premium Speed Pass Content requires Premium Speed Pass and Need for Speed Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates. Requires gameplay to unlock. You must log in before the end of Volume 6 to claim your reward. Failure to log in and claim during this period will result in forfeiting the reward.

Didn't catch the items and cars in the Vol. 5 Speed Pass? No worries. The Need for Speed™ Unbound - Vol. 5 Catch-Up Pack offers you the Legendary Custom Volkswagen Beetle (1963), and all the 74 cosmetics and customizations from the Volume 5 Speed Pass, including the Legendary Custom Buick Grand National GNX (1987)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1846380/Need_for_Speed_Unbound/

Ok, we're here, Vol. 6, go time!

Hopefully you saw the blog post detailing the year ahead we have for you but, if not, have a glance here!

Fully equipped with what Unbound Y2 and Kaizen are now? Great!

Just in case though, the TL;DR is that we want to build; not take away, and with each volume, step towards our goal of you starting to experience for the first time ever, the ultimate NFS destination in one place.

So what are we adding?! In Vol. 6 we are hitting with:
- Dedicated PVP (with fresh playlists weekly)
- Global Rank across SP and MP
- Premium Speed Pass*
- 25 new races
and oh, saving possibly the best till last…Audi is back with the triple threat of the S5, R8 and (new to NFS) the Audi RS 6!

Check below for the full details on everything, including other improvements and QOL. We’re extremely excited to see the positive response to the roadmap so far but we need your help.

This year is all about Kaizen and to live that iterative philosophy of changing for the better. We need you all to let us know what you think, what you like and what you want to see improved. We’ll be regularly monitoring the community Subreddit and other social channels for your feedback. Right! Last one to max rank has to help Rydell with the baby powder…

- Team Kaizen, Criterion Games


Added Audi Audi S5 Sportback (2017), Audi R8 Coupé (2019) and Audi RS 6 Avant (2020)
Audi's back! Get free access to the Audi S5 Sportback and Audi R8 Coupé, including body kits, in the Speed Pass. Upgrade to Premium for access to the stealthy and not-so-subtle Audi RS 6 Avant.


It's great to have Audi back in Need for Speed. We have a long heritage together and what better way to show that off than with one of our Legends-inspired customs: Darius’ Audi R8 from NFS Carbon. You’ll find it in the Premium Speed Pass* so check it out!


With Kaizen we want to try new things and partnering with Audi seemed like the perfect opportunity for this. So for each of the Audis in Vol. 6, you will find a new handling model equipped specifically for them.

Key differences:
- Introduces a more gradual loss of grip to make initiating a drift feel smoother and make the loss of traction feel more predictable.
- Smoothed out the high grip spec experience, aiming to reduce the amount of snapping that can occur, keeping you in grip more and punishing you less for a loss of grip.
- Making high drift spec drifting easier to initiate and retain a more consistent flow when transitioning.

Welcome to a new world of competition in Unbound. With Dedicated PVP, players compete in our featured playlists over this and the coming volumes.

We heard that you weren't getting the full experience you wanted from Lakeshore Online with regard to races. So we have added a dedicated PVP ‘door’ in the top level of the online garage. Now you can matchmake with everyone else in the NFSverse that's all about the winning!

The Dedicated ‘PVP’ door will also mean fuller playlists too, with 4 flavors to choose from that refresh each week. EVERYONE wanting to play PVP will be matchmade into them. Full playlists FTW!

Dedicated PVP is also our first step toward weekly programming. Each week the playlists will update to something fresh, so check back for what's hot each week.

There will always be an option to simply race and be matchmade to anyone, but there will also be boosted events (boosted cash and XP!) as well as a selection of the options below:
- Audi preview playlists allow you to experience the Audis and their new handling even without having them in your garage. As everyone is in the same car, these playlists are all about how you drive, not what's under the hood!
- Brand new S+, S, A+ and A tier races and playlists (25 in total)
- NFS Legends playlist celebrating 30 years of NFS (New one every volume)

Sounds good, right? Here's the Kaizen homework though. You need to let us know what you would like to see more or less of for the PVP playlists. This is your opportunity to actually affect what's on offer each week. Look out for asks on the NFS Reddit (insert link) on what we should feature in the coming weeks. More variety will come to the PVP door in future volumes. Help us build it into something great to bring the community together!

Introducing a new ranking system that will persist beyond volumes. Whether you play in Story, Lakeshore Online or dedicated PVP, you will always make progress in your rank.
How many ranks, you ask? 200 to start! With the rank cap being raised with each volume.

What rewards? You mean more than the pleasure of a shiny rank badge and the intimidation of your rivals? Okay, how about chunks of XP, cash and our new title system, where with each volume through ranking up, challenges and the Speed Pass you can collect and display a title on your banner that expresses what you are all about?…Or maybe what you wish you were!

Starting with Vol. 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. For Vol. 6, it's the beast known as the Audi RS 6 Avant. Premium Pass also gives access to a Custom version of the RS6 inspired by Michèle Hélène Raymonde Mouton’s legendary Audi Quattro rally car.

Premium Speed Pass will also have the 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. Remember, 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.

We are putting a greater emphasis on car content for the Speed Pass and making it available to Single Player, too, and yes that includes the Speed Pass vehicles. It’s our hope that this is seen as an improvement. Not only in how we deliver fresh new content to you, but in value too.


25 new races! Across A-S+ tiers! and it wouldn't be Kaizen without trying out some new things. Like a race that runs along the length of the downtown elevated trainline? Yep! Race is called “Gotta be Kiddin’ Me” for a reason.

As with everything, let us know what you like and don't like! It will help inform us for the Volumes ahead.

Freedrive playlist weekly speedlist updates
You might remember our update where we added Server recommended playlists in Freedrive? Well as with our Dedicated PVP rotation, the playlists now recommended by the server will change on a weekly basis too.

You can now add towards both your Global rank and your Speed Pass progression from either Single player or Multiplayer. Cars you unlock from the Speed Pass will be unlocked in SP too!

XP rewards have been added and rebalanced for the following:
- Activities + Collectables
- Linkup MVP
- SP events
- Side Bets
- Escaping cop chases
- Playlists

Playlist rewards have been rebalanced. First place now receives lower rewards with last place earning more, reducing the disparity. The base reward for a playlist has also been increased, but the modifier for participants has been decreased, meaning the number of participants impacts the rewards less now. It's all a bit Robin Hood (steal from the rich, give to the poor), but there is overall more XP in the pool.

We have also made other improvements to make your life easier:
- Hot Laps are not discovered by default, as these are no longer ‘new’: they sit alongside the other activities to find and conquer
- Fixed a bug with Linkup MVP tracking - now it should take into account contribution to the whole round!
- Fixed a bug when entering a Linkup while in a pursuit/escaping, where a player wouldn't trigger the escalating heat and pursuit status throughout the Linkup rounds
- Some small performance improvements when in longer game modes (endurance, mostly). This should save on CPU usage spikes
- Improved cars and road reflection
- Improved image aliasing stability
- Fixed ""white tunnels"" problem

Need help?
We got you. Hit up Answers HQ, where you can report bugs or issues for a member of the team to check out.

Be sure to follow Need for Speed on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok for the latest news.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1846380/Need_for_Speed_Unbound/

*Premium Speed Pass Content requires Premium Speed Pass and Need for Speed Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates. Requires gameplay to unlock. You must log in before the end of Volume 6 to claim your reward. Failure to log in and claim during this period will result in forfeiting the reward.

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?:

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.

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.

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.

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!

*Requires Need for Speed Unbound (sold separately) and all game updates. Requires gameplay to unlock. You must log in before the end of Volume 6 to claim your reward. Failure to log in and claim during this period will result in forfeiting the reward.

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.