Need for Speed™ Unbound Vol. 8: Cops vs. Racers Reveal Blog

Let me just ask you guys something... did you even try to balance out this mode? Because there's a ton of factors that make this so unbelievably, ungodly frustrating. I came to have a good time in this mode, but instead, I'm just let down at the overall execution. I am good at the game, but this isn't how it should've been executed. I am starting to really hate this mode now, and most of my expectations have been completely null. Criterion may be a small team, but you know what, even a team like this can make really good titles like the original Hot Pursuit 2010. In Unbound, this is a completely different game, and I don't understand how you guys can screw it all up. The factors are the following (oh, and there's some gooooood details about 'em...):

1. Cops are honestly too overpowered in this mode. Not only are there WAY too many AI cops that get in the way of the game, but the cops players use should've been assorted in the right tier, or at least slightly above. They should at least keep the infinite Nitrous, earn Burst Nitrous faster to keep up, and like with the original game, have faster acceleration than the Racer version to catch up faster. Make the AI cops weaker in offensive power while keeping the player cops untouched for that. Also maybe give Racers Pursuit Tech only for this mode, or make their Auxiliary items more potent, because even with the highest rating for Impact Protection, it's rendered useless because of how overpowered the cops are. Make the Re-deploy cooldown longer, and shorten the cooldown on level 2 Pursuit Tech.
2. When being a cop, I notice massive lag on the PC version of this game (I haven't played this mode very much on the PS5 version), and it's annoying because this shouldn't be happening in the first place, it sometimes makes me lag out of a game and I have to reconnect online only for the game to show a blank screen. Their handling is also more difficult to use, even with proper handling tuning! Who's idiotic idea was it to do that? Shouldn't the handling be exactly the same as their Racer models as well? I understand that player cops need a bit of a handicap, but this isn't exactly how to do it. It makes the Cop Career more of a pain to complete, I dunno how someone like me would be able to complete it by dealing with this.
3. Speaking of the Cop Career, there's one particular Challenge for Rank 8 that sounds simple, but the game is like, very vague on how hard you hit other Racers with the Electrostatic Field. I need to get max Burst Nitrous from hitting a Racer while it's active 6 times to complete it. I thought, "Okay, so I probably need to smash into incoming Racers while it's active for it to count." And while it initially worked, later times, I didn't. So either replace this Challenge with something else entirely, or just make it more fair with the ESF because I really hate trying to get it right. Honestly, the Cop Career should've been like in the original game where the more Bounty you earn, the more vehicles you get. But here, should've been like you buy new cars that become available.
4. When respawning from a wreck, sometimes you just get smashed immediately afterwards by another car coming from behind that is speeding much faster than you, further lowering your health, whether it'd by by another racer, an AI cop, or even worse, a player cop. This is ridiculous, this shouldn't even happen, and it makes playing as a racer even more worthless. I can't enjoy the mode when something like this happens, and I've rage quit so many times because of that because such a thing pisses me off so much because it heightens my chances of losing. It's not fair, and it's stupid.
5. There's a lot of netcode problems with this mode, and probably even in others as well. It's not my internet connection that's the problem, it's the problem of the game, why is this even happening? It shouldn't have been affected when just adding a new mode to the game! If it's other players having bad internet, then this game should have a stronger netcode. But I honestly believe it is the former.

At this point, I'm probably just gonna try to finish up the Cop Career and won't touch this mode ever again until an overhaul of improvements are added. I wanted to like this mode, I really did. But unfortunately, I've been left with a hollow experience with so many problems and a very unbalanced experience that a lot of people are just going back to the original Hot Pursuit game than playing this mode. I speak the truth in this regard, so you guys better step up your game and make it quick. I'm only gonna say this once...

You managed to ruin the Hot Pursuit experience in Unbound. What a letdown.