Need for Speed Unbound | Visual Effects and Gameplay Footage

A week after the release of a trailer, Electronic Arts gives us a new short video about Need For Speed Unbound.

The theme of this new "drop", as these are called on the official website, is the street art styled visual effects, showing us a bit more about how these can be customized and how they fit during gameplay. We also got confirmation that while the player can elect to not install custom visual effects on their own cars, they will still remain on opponents vehicles, while the default stylized tyre smoke and taillight trails can't be "removed" (understand that realistic smoke effects with transparency don't exist in this game).



But the main theme of the drop seems like a diversion, as more interesting things can be spotted in this new video, from all the new gameplay footage introduced. While the physics appear unsurprisingly still obviously arcade, the attentive eye will spot some weight transfer movements and suspension bouncing. The car featured is obviously a special car with extreme modifications and performance, as the speeds reached and the chopped roof of the S14 Silvia indicate. Such a heavy visual transformation hints at the car being unique, and since it appears to be driven by different account names, we can expect it to be THE car, as previous information mentioned a stolen car being central to the story. Think Most Wanted's M3 GTR.



Look at HUD details between the different scenes, and you will be rewarded with additional hints at which direction the gameplay is taking. First, we can see there are two separate boost gauges on the bottom right: one is materialized by blue nitrous bottles, and is surrounded by another gauge, filling up in yellow and divided into 3 sections. Stunts like drifting fill up the yellow gauge, as text shows in the same color next to it, and it seems like more classic racing techniques could fill out the regular nitrous, as drafting appears in the same shade of blue filling the bottles. This supports further the theory that a Burnout style boost is layered on top of classic on demand nitrous. If the mechanic is taken straight away from Burnout games, that boost will be a one click action and will be stronger if you fill out the 3 bars before using it, and the camera shift into a wider FOV with speedlines falls in line with this.




In the top left part of the screen, the ranking overlay shows a sum of money next to the position, but only in some of the races, pretty much confirming the betting mechanic won't be systematic. Police cars get a health bar hovering over them, suggesting they could be disabled by crashing into them or using other strategies.



The last part of the video shows the player crashing into a bridge support, with the footage seemingly abruptly transitioning to the end screen. But going frame by frame, we can get a glimpse of another Burnout inspired featured: the crash cam. Time stops for a very brief moment when the car hits the horizontal pillar, the whole screen turns into a comic style panel before time resumes and shows the action from a different camera angle. This means crashing could be critical, especially when wanted or chased by law enforcement.