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Title of new Need for Speed game leaks ahead of Thursday’s reveal

By George Yang October 4, 2022

Electronic Arts recently teased that a reveal for a new Need for Speed game was coming soon, and then announced that a trailer would be shown at 8 a.m. PT on October 6. But two days before the event, EA’s own site accidentally leaked the name of the upcoming game, which we now know is called Need for Speed Unbound.

The leaked artwork is in a more cel-shaded and cartoonish style, with a car trailing yellow-colored smoke and graffiti plastered on it. The graffiti includes iconography like the anarchy symbol, nuclear symbol, and dollar sign.

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the new Need for Speed game is titled Unbound (art leaked from EA's own website) pic.twitter.com/ndjbJ3eS1L

— Wario64 (@Wario64) October 4, 2022

No other details about the game were leaked, but there were some rumors floating around that the next Need for Speed game would be for the latest generation of consoles only. It will reportedly release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, while leaving PlayStation 4 and Xbox One behind.

As for a potential release date, EA chief studio officer Laura Miele said last year that the next Need for Speed game would be handled by Criterion Games and will release by March 2023. If Need for Speed Unbound intends to launch before the end of the year, it would face stiff competition in November from the likes of God of War Ragnarök, Sonic Frontiers, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

In December, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and the Callisto Protocol are the heavy hitters closing out the year. January 2023 has Forspoken, Fire Emblem Engage, and the Dead Space remake. February has Dead Island 2, Hogwarts Legacy, and Like a Dragon: Ishin! Finally, March has Resident Evil 4 remake, as well as Skull and Bones.

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‘Need for Speed Payback’ accelerates in-game car progression

Need for Speed Payback review hydraulics

Citing “community feedback,” the EA has recently made some tweaks to the progression system in Need for Speed Payback. In a post on the official Reddit forum, developer F8RGE acknowledged that the company has “been using Community feedback, along with our own in-game data and have come up with a number of changes, many of which are in the process of going live.”

While the complaints about the Star Wars Battlefront II loot box system were much louder, Payback players have also been critical about the game’s microtransactions and the difficulty inherent in unlocking new parts and upgrades.

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Absolutely everything you’ll want to know about ‘Need for Speed Payback’

Latest 'Need for Speed Payback' trailer goes all-in on story

The Need for Speed series has spent the last two years in the garage, but Electronic Arts’ street-racing series looks like it’s about to hit the gas again. Developer Ghost Games is behind the wheel, and the next game, officially titled Need for Speed Payback, will get on the road this November.

There are a few details floating around for Need for Speed Payback, including the game's setting, characters, story, and some of its available vehicles. At EA's first E3 event (read up on everything happening at E3 2017), we got a sneak peek at the death-defying action featured in Payback, as well as a taste of just how cinematic and over-the-top some of those action sequences can get, and EA gave us more information on the game and its characters in the following months. Here's everything we know about Need for Speed Payback so far.
It won't require an internet connection
Probably the biggest and most important tidbit from Ghost Games' May announcement is that Payback won’t require an online connection to play. Both Need for Speed: Rivals and the 2015 Need for Speed reboot included an always-online requirement, which meant that, even playing alone, players had to connect the games to the internet. That’s not the case in Need for Speed Payback -- Ghost Games says the title will include a full single-player campaign, and you will be able to pause it while you play.
We'll drive around an open world as three different characters
As with the previous two games in the series, Need for Speed Payback will take players into an open world. This time around, it's the seedy criminal underbelly of Fortune Valley.

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EA Play was all about character drama, whether it made sense – or not

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If there was a theme uniting everything shown at Electronic Arts’ E3 event, it was drama.

From Madden NFL 18, the yearly iteration of EA’s football franchise, bearing the character-focused subtitle "Longshot," to the Fast and Furious-like Need for Speed: Payback, every game EA showed focused on characters front and center.