With the reveal of Need for Speed Heat dropping yesterday, racing fans are ready to fuel up and take their skills to the streets. The 2-minute teaser trailer shows off a bit of the game while hinting at some of the features that fans can expect in this new entry.
However, Need for Speed, the flagship racing franchise from EA, has been lacking certain improvements that the game was once praised for in the past, dating back to Need For Speed Rivals in 2013.
Fans of the franchise have been begging for EA to make some critical changes to help increase the longevity of the game and improve the various aspects that have fallen by the wayside over the years.
We have compiled some of those improvements that players have been clamoring for so that Need for Speed Heat can be the best entry yet.
Here are six improvements we want to see in Need for Speed Heat.
Improved Driving Physics
Driving in Need for Speed Payback was a challenge. Rather than allowing the player to feel like they are one with the car, it felt instead like you were in a constant fight with the physics to keep your car straight and steady as you attempt to pass the other drivers.
Using brake to drift is a staple in most racing franchises, it allows the driver to take a sharp turn at incredible speeds and maintain your position in the race, a key skill that players must learn in order to take the number one spot in the polls.
However, Need for Speed Payback made drifting a risky endeavor. Spinning out of control became the norm rather than a rare occurrence for both experienced and inexperienced players alike.
In Need for Speed 2015, EA attempted to make the driving more accessible by implementing a handling slider that allowed players to choose just how much grip their car had on the roads.
However, while increasing the grip helped improve your control over the vehicle, it also made you feel as though you were driving a boat rather than a car.
EA then attempted to improve upon these handling sliders in Need for Speed Payback, but the sliders felt less impactful for long-time players and even more confusing for new players as the tweaks rarely felt like they did much of anything.
Need for Speed Heat needs to improve the driving mechanics first and foremost before anything else. If players find the driving to be too difficult or an annoyance from the get-go, they are more likely to stop playing rather than learn the nuances of the mechanics.
Lately, Need for Speed games have been lacking that precise and fluid driving that racing games need to have in order to succeed. If the entire game is based around driving a car, the game should not make controlling your vehicle an exercise in patience.
Need for Speed would benefit by learning from its competitors, such as Forza Horizon, that nail the satisfying arcade-style racing by tuning the driving mechanics in a way that appeases both casual and hardcore players.
Free-Roam Cops
Need for Speed has been known for its intense races against AI and other players, but one of the most exciting aspects of the franchise are the chases you would get in with police in the open-world setting.
These high-speed chases against cops gave the moment to moment gameplay a massive boost and helped increase replayability due to the random encounters that would take place between you and the authorities.
Need for Speed Payback disappointed fans with its complete lack of police in free-roam mode. Rather than having the cops patrol random areas of the map as you and your friends raced around the streets of Fortune Valley, they instead opted to have them be more instance-based and found in various missions.
The police in Payback were far too simple to avoid, too easy to outrun, and were too limited to become a challenge for players.
Although the cops were vastly improved over Need for Speed 2015, they were severely limited due to only appearing in missions and when going for the collectible Bait Crates scattered around the map.
However, there is good news for NFS fans looking to test their engines by outrunning the police once again. Not only is the title Need for Speed Heat a direct reference to the police, but the brief trailer we got shows a heavy presence of cops which could hint that free-roaming police may be back for good.
If EA can strike a balance between free-roam cops, improved police AI, and give players a risk versus reward mechanic for outrunning the police, Need for Speed Heat may just fix the problems that plagued its predecessor.
Improved Customization
One of the best features of any racing game is the customization aspects. Pimping out your car with the latest spoiler, exhaust, or vinyl is what keeps players engaged for the long-haul as they attempt to make their car stand out from the rest.
Need for Speed as a franchise is in a pretty good place in terms of its customization. However, there are some improvements that Heat can make in order to claim the throne of car customization in racing games.
In Need for Speed Payback, vinyls and stickers were limited in terms of where you could place them. Allowing players to put these items anywhere on the car, such as the wheels or lights, would allow players to create some very unique styles for their vehicles.
Unfortunately, the restrictions on customization seemed to increase the more you played NFS Payback.
Lower tiered cars had plenty of visual customization options that the player could choose from, but once they got their hands on some of the more advanced vehicles, customization became more limited and players had fewer options to choose from.
This limitation is partly due to high-performance vehicles having fewer options in the real world. While there is a large contingent of players that enjoy that authenticity, some players would rather have limitless customization options so that they can express themselves more freely.
Another aspect that needs to be improved in Need for Speed Heat is the wheel selection. In Payback, trying to find the wheel you prefer meant you were forced to scroll through an endless list, combing through each and every option until you find the one you want.
Need for Speed Heat can improve upon this by implementing more filters and categories for the various customization options so that players can spend less time scouring menus and more time customizing their ride.
Improved Microtransactions, Less Grind
Introduced in Need for Speed Payback was the randomized car upgrading system known as Speed Cards. These were random cards that you would feed to your vehicle in order to improve the performance.
These cards were meant to give players something to grind for as they play the game to slowly improve the inner workings of their favorite cars. However, due to the random nature of these cards, it made for a frustrating and confusing experience for new and old players alike.
Although players could earn these cards in-game, they also had the option of purchasing them on the marketplace, giving players with less time (and a disposable income) the chance to pour real money into their virtual car.
While Speed Cards were not nearly as invasive as some of the other microtransactions that EA has implemented in other games over the years, they ended up replacing the far easier upgrading options we have seen in the past.
Rather than simply driving to a parts store in the game and purchasing what you want directly like previous NFS games, the player was forced to participate in pseudo loot box mechanics to upgrade the vehicle’s stats.
This mechanic forced an unnecessary grind onto people that didn’t want to pay, while at the same time, encouraged players that have less time to purchase cards to avoid the grind.
Although Speed Cards can be completely ignored by most players, their inclusion made progression in Need for Speed Payback come to a screeching halt at times. It was this unnecessary grinding that turned off casual players from the game.
In order for Need for Speed Heat to succeed, it needs to balance the amount of grind a player must go through in order to upgrade the parts the way they like.
Improved Endgame & Challenges
Need for Speed Heat can improve upon its predecessors by including an endgame, something for players who have beaten the story and upgraded their favorite cars to go after once the credits roll.
Unlike other popular racing games like Forza Horizon, NFS Payback lacked a gameplay loop to keep players coming back. By not including some type of carrot on a stick for players to chase after, Need for Speed players find themselves putting down the games far too quickly.
Need for Speed 2015 introduced fans to Speed Lists, which were a series of multiplayer events of various types that got players coming back to the game to increase their rank. However, Payback’s Speed List felt like a regression compared to 2015, and the overall endgame suffered because of it.
Need for Speed Heat can vastly improve upon this by adding weekly challenges that give players unique rewards. Whether its new cars, parts, customization options or more, giving players something to strive for will keep the player base attentive and coming back to see what they can earn each time they log in.
Rather than spending development resources hiding useless collectibles all over the map, Need for Speed Heat would be a massive improvement over Payback if they simply added more challenges and harder races for long-time players to test themselves with.
By adding seasonal events, rotating challenges and unique rewards, Need for Speed Heat might just be the best Need for Speed game yet.
Focus Less On Story, More On Gameplay
Need for Speed has always attempted to implement outlandish stories into their games. Most of the time, these stories came off as a weak imitation of the Fast and the Furious movies.
Whether it was including hyper-realistic live-action cutscenes or fully 3D rendered ones, the story in Need for Speed games always comes off as dull and cheesy.
Unfortunately, based on the trailer for NFS Heat, it appears as though we will be treated to the same sort of bland dialogue and uninteresting story as the previous games.
However, if EA puts less emphasis on the story this time around and focuses more on the open-world gameplay, Need for Speed Heat could potentially be an outlier in comparison to its predecessors.
Cheesy stories have become a staple when it comes to Need for Speed games. This tongue in cheek storytelling approach may work for some forms of media, but in the setting of a video game that typically lasts far longer than a film, the humor of it all begins to wear out quickly.
Rather than hiring bland voice actors and wasting resources on filming live-action cutscenes, EA needs to focus more on developing the moment to moment open-world shenanigans that the player can get into.
After all, we are here to play a racing game, not watch one. A lot of players wouldn’t mind forgoing the story in exchange for a far more competent racing game overall.
By making the six changes above, Need for Speed Heat has an opportunity to break out of its mold and change the downward direction the series has been going in for quite some time.
Be sure to check out Twinfinite more breaking news regarding Need for Speed Heat once the gameplay reveal trailer drops at Gamescom next week!
Published: Aug 15, 2019 10:37 am