---
title: "Need for Speed Unbound Leans Into Stylized Street Racing Silliness"
date: "2022-10-06"
modified: "2022-10-06"
authors:
  - name: "Chris Tsui"
    job_title: "Contributor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/chris-tsui"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/need-for-speed-unbound-leans-into-stylized-street-racing-silliness"
categories:
  - "Culture"
  - "News"
  - "Video Games"
---

# Need for Speed Unbound Leans Into Stylized Street Racing Silliness

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/06/Need-for-Speed-Unbound-Reveal-Screenshot-3.jpeg>)
*Electronic Arts*

After a three-year hiatus—the longest in the franchise's recent history—*[Need for Speed](<https://www.thedrive.com/news/44747/i-played-nfs-underground-for-14-hours-straight-and-somehow-raised-43605-for-trans-rights>)* is back. Publisher Electronic Arts released the first trailer for *Need for Speed Unbound* on Thursday, the latest entry in the storied racing game franchise that appears to lean into the street racing aesthetic, with the emphasis there on street.

Looking like a video game cross between *2 Fast 2 Furious* and *Suicide Squad*, NFS Unbound combines impeccably rendered cars with cel-shaded humans and some very neat two-dimensional graphical overlays. Hand-drawn wings appear when Nissans go over jumps while drift-induced tire smoke is deliberately animated. It's admittedly very cool and I'll be deeply disappointed if that sort of thing doesn't actually appear during gameplay.

https://youtu.be/H2Y8XCe7F9E

Rapper A$AP Rocky also shows up as what appears to be the game's antagonist alongside a virtual recreation of [his own custom Mercedes 190E](<https://twitter.com/mrsawge11/status/1576649801252229122>).

On top of the obvious nighttime street racing and cop-evading action—peep the *very* aggro Ford Raptor SWAT truck that crashes the party at around 0:55—it appears the new *NFS* game will also involve closed-course gymkhana-type driving, judging from a brief clip in this trailer.

*Need for Speed Unbound* will be a current-gen console affair and is scheduled to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC on Dec. 2.

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/06/Need-for-Speed-Unbound-Reveal-Screenshot-1.jpeg>)

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/06/Need-for-Speed-Unbound-Reveal-Screenshot-2.jpeg>)

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/06/Need-for-Speed-Unbound-Reveal-Screenshot-4.jpeg>)

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/06/Need-for-Speed-Unbound-Reveal-Screenshot-5.jpeg>)

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/06/Need-for-Speed-Unbound-Key-Art-scaled.jpeg>)

After starting out as arguably the de facto arcade-style racing game in the '90s, *Need for Speed* achieved cult status with its modification-and-street racing-focused *Underground* installments in the '00s. Ever since then, the series has experimented with its identity almost yearly, going back and forth between more track-oriented, simcade-leaning endeavors such as *ProStreet* or *Shift*, and the attitude-heavy and stylized vehicular crime simulators that are the revived *Hot Pursuit* or *[Most Wanted](<https://www.thedrive.com/news/32798/this-video-shows-what-need-for-speed-most-wanted-would-look-like-in-real-life>)* games.

*Unbound* definitely falls under the latter category and, hopefully, its longer gestation time has given developers the opportunity to recapture some of that *Underground*-era magic. This game also happens to be the first *NFS* partly developed by Codemasters after EA acquired the car game firm in 2021.

*Got a tip or question for the author? You can reach him here: chris.tsui@thedrive.com*

## Author
Chris Tsui is *The Drive*'s former Reviews Editor and current freelance automotive journalist. He's based in Toronto.

### Author social links  
[Instagram](<https://www.instagram.com/cltsuii/>)