How To Make A Successful NFS

 NFS 2015 is a beautifully catastrophic ALMOST perfect NFS and I am going to explain why.

First off, It is a brutal shame that GHOST Games got shutdown because they were amazing, they just needed leadership who were confident in what the direction of NFS must be and the ambition to follow through on that vision.. With support from EA in the form of longer development time and less crunch on developers.

While NFS 2015 suffered from a cringe-fest of a story (which is still a major issue with current titles) it did get the tone and vibe perfectly right while highlighting car culture icons like Nakai-San and Ken Block (rip)

The most important things for an NFS title are these: 

-Blacklist, people need to climb up a criminal empire that functions like a medieval Knights tournament where the winner earns the right to take the car of the loser (along with their reputation and their buy-in) 

-Freedom of customization, but not just any customization, body mods, performance mods, tuning, this is what NFS 2015 accomplished beautifully and I bet Nakai-San made sure to inform the developers of just how important this aspect of car culture and by extension how important this feature is for NFS.

 -Lawlessness Themes, in the best NFS titles and in the best street racing movies, the story revolves around outlaws in a similar sense as Red Dead 2, where the outlaws are down trodden on by society and the systems which are supposedly designed to support them turn out to actually be the greatest source of their problems, ultimately resulting in their choices accumulating to outlaw life, in NFS this can be seen as using racing as a means of financial gain to aid them in solving the problems the system put them in (unable to feed themselves/family, having less job opportunity due to past criminal charges, being a visible minority, etc)

-The soundtrack, drifting should be phonk, racing should be EDM/original music from past games, pursuits should be composed in-house, free roam should have multiple radio stations similar to GTA to accommodate different musical tastes. The soundtrack MUST be good because the whole game is spent in a car, unfortunately NFS 2015 has the weakest soundtrack in all of the games..

-Real car brands with real models that span anywhere from the 70s to the current times, with the accompanying customization options mentioned previously. A lot of people like JDM styled cars, a lot of people like super cars, and a lot of people like everything in between, NFS is ultimately a game celebrating street car culture. People like Nakai-San and Ken Block understand that VERY well.. which is why its so important that NFS 2015 had them attached to the project.

-Graphics, NFS 2015 is over 10 years old and it looks better than every NFS that came out since, sure the devs got away with funny tricks like making it night time and raining..but tbh..if it serves the themes (which it does) and it makes the game look good (which it do) then I see no issue, besides the whole game supposedly takes place in one night..thats a cool concept..too bad the story doesnt have a leg to stand on to add some real stakes, look at Tokyo Drift for example..that guy totals a car, gets sent to Japan because of it, and enters the underground race/drift scene where there are legit organized crime syndicates willing to murder cheat and steal to win..now THATS stakes.. something the legacy titles like Most Wanted and Carbon understood.. the backdrop of the always night time aesthetic screams danger and charisma, its the perfect tone for NFS, and the lighting is SO intentional, there are roads with blue streetlights that look almost cyberpunk, streets with warm street lights that feel safe, streets with the classic white street lights that feel authentic, the back alleys lit by store lights and the light from your headlights hitting construction cones and cordon. The silence of the night where there are almost no civilians outside add to the almost liminal feel you get when you drive through a city at 3 am..

The next NFS needs to take a LOT of notes from NFS 2015 while learning from the mistakes of all the recent titles, that means have a strong soundtrack, have a strong story, commit to the lawlessness/danger themes of the strongest titles in the franchise, commit to respecting and celebrating street car culture, and please KNOW. YOUR. AUDIENCE. Stop trying to appeal to everyone thats exactly how you appeal to nobody.. the concept of Taoism is worthwhile to study if you guys struggle with committing to a particular demographic because Taoism does a great job of showing why it is necessary to have opposites, without opposites, everything is the same, if everything is the same, then there is nothing, if there is nothing, well..how do you sell nothing to someone? You can't. 

The reason NFS Unbound sits at a mixed review on Steam is the exact same reason why NFS 2015 sits at a mixed review on Steam, both games don't commit to the street racing culture demographic that championed the franchise up to 2015.. the other games in between are fine in their own right, but the first legacy NFS title to really popularize the IP was NFS Underground 2..and guess what? if you compare NFS 2015 with Underground 2 youll find a lot of similarities, wanna know something crazier? The second legacy title to cement NFS as a franchise for fans of street racing..was NFS Most Wanted (also the hardest NFS title by far you could argue Carbon was harder only cuz they specifically wanted it to which was..meh) NFS Most Wanted is drenched in street racing aesthetics, from the story of lawlessness, to the introduction of the Blacklist... both NFS 2015 and Unbound share the most with the two legacy titles I just mentioned...but thats being a glass half full person about a glass thats actually half empty... 

Nowadays Forza Horizon reigns supreme because its mechanics and graphics and commitment to its demographic (car hobbyists) has remained steadfast.. the only way Need for Speed makes a comeback is if the team working on the next game commits to the street racing culture that championed NFS in the first place, dont focus on being an "arcade" racer, focus on being the game people like Nakai-San and Ken Block would be proud of being included in, and even happier to play. 

But, if you don't want to do all that, please just add an offline patch for Need For Speed 2015, because currently with mods that game is almost perfect.

For reference the mods I use (if you want to try it for yourself) are Evolution Works (with harder cops add-on, and handling overhaul) and a custom soundtrack... thats it.. if there were a mod that changed the story and added a Blacklist then NFS 2015 would be perfect as long as it wasn't online only.. 

TLDR;

Forza Horizon is for car hobbyists.

Need for Speed should be for fans of street culture, fans of Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift, fans of Nakai-San and Ken Block, fans of NFS Most Wanted (not the remake) NFS 2015 could have been game of the year if it had a soundtrack, if the story actually set real stakes like Most Wanted did, if the gameplay loop focused on just that..being a loop, and last but definitely not least, if it was not online-only.