Need for Speed Unbound First Look Gameplay Details New Driving Effects
Need for Speed Unbound’s second weekly content drop has gone live over on the official Need for Speed website, this time detailing the all-new driving effects coming to game in a quick first-look gameplay teaser showcasing the feature.
You can check out the full 37-second gameplay snippet down below, featuring a heavily-customized B Class Nissan S14 tearing up Lakeshore City with the all-new effects.
The official Need for Speed website outlines these new effects in more detail, which are known as ‘Tags’. Darren White, Need for Speed Unbound’s art director at Criterion Games, elaborates that the team wanted to “deliver an art style that matters for gameplay, one that clearly celebrates player actions, enhances the player experience, and rewards them along the way.”
Unbound will feature a hyper-realistic art style with photorealistic car models and environments, meshed with cel-shaded character models and visual effects. Tags will come to life when using boosts or performing certain actions, such as drifting, jumps, and near misses, which will appear as ‘dramatic, customizable effects’ that mold both the with curves of your car and the world surrounding it.
Street Art plays heavily into the core identity of Need for Speed Unbound, with the game featuring a diverse collection of styles from multiple artists around the world including Sentrock and JC Riviera. These styles will not only appear as Tags, but can also be collected and applied to your cars in the Wrap Editor.
Tags will be unlocked through gameplay progression, and as confirmed over on Twitter by the official Need for Speed account, are completely optional expressive form of customization that does not need to be applied if players don’t want to, much like any form of customization in the game.
The website also confirms car customization has been expanded upon in greater detail and grandeur with Need for Speed Unbound, with brand-new wrap editor content and body kit selections to choose from. One of the new forms of car customization coming to Unbound is part removal, which will allow you to delete certain aspects of your car such as bumpers and hoods.
Character customization is also seeing an upgrade from NFS Heat, with characters in Unbound being “unapologetically expressive with new fashion collaborations”. Player Character customization features additional cosmetic changes and customizable poses that lets you show off in key moments like after a race win.
Need for Speed Unbound launches on December 2nd, 2022 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, or three days earlier on November 29th for the Palace Edition purchasers and EA Play subscribers.
If you missed it, check out our Need for Speed Unbound reveal article detailing the first bits of info, including the map, multiplayer, all-new physics model and more, as well as the full car list featuring over 140 cars and our Hidden Details breakdown outlining all the key things you may have missed!
Be sure to stay tuned to our socials for all the latest Need for Speed Unbound news, rumours and announcements as we head towards launch later this year!