Need For Speed is one of the longest-running racing franchises and is still around to this day. Players who used to play Need For Speed 2 SE when they were ten years old now have their own kids who are ten years old and playNeed For Speed Unbound. The good thing is that there is no overarching story for any of the Need For Speed games, so players new to this franchise can jump in at any point.
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While there have been a lot of entries in this series, not all of these titles are worth putting your hard-earned money and time into. Games in this series don’t get better than these ten Need For Speed games.
10Need for Speed: Underground
Linear Races Without an Open World
Need for Speed: Underground
The game where the Need for Speed franchise started to take itself seriously was the first Underground title. The gameplay value of this game was massively improved compared to previous entries, thanks to the inclusion of music tracks by big-name authors and the addition of a big roster of popular cars.
Coming out during the peak of JDM cars and illegal street racing, the game fully capitalized on this trend by making the entire game set during the night. Vehicles had fully over-the-top customizations such as neon under glows and swapping taillights that beautifully captured the essence of the street racing scene at the time.
9Need for Speed: The Run
Beautiful Set Piece Moments
Need for Speed: The Run
The story has never been a strong suit of Need for Speed games, but in 2011’s Need for Speed: The Run, EA Black Box studios steered into a completely new direction by creating the game around a story, which took priority over the typical open-world sandbox nature of the previous games.
That said, The Run is a surprisingly fun game that does lack in some of the key areas that define the franchise, but it more than makes up for that thanks to the amazing set-piece moments and a somewhat comical but good storyline.
8Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
The Most Chaotic Need for Speed
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Heavily inspired by theBurnoutseries, especially Burnout Paradise, Criterion Games completely switched the Need for Speed formula and went for a more action-focused arcade racing game. Instead of owning and slowly upgrading and customizing a few cars during the entire playthrough, in Most Wanted (2012), players have to do races in every single car in the game.
The progression is awkward, but once players get the hang of it, it’s surprisingly fulfilling to be able to find any car in the open world and get to drive it without saving up money for it.
7Need for Speed Rivals
Extremely Well-Crafted Open World
Need for Speed Rivals
In Need for Speed Rivals, the developers brought back playing as a cop, which had been a feature in the older Hot Pursuit titles but had since been forgotten. Players get to play as both illegal racers as well as the police and progress separately in either category.
The world and the map of Need for Speed Rivals are varied and beautiful, with jaw-dropping visuals and vistas that stay with the players a long time after they’re done. But the game can get extremely difficult, especially during the cop chases where if the player’s car gets destroyed, they lose all the bounty of that run.
6Need for Speed Payback
Fast and Furious Reimagined in a Need for Speed Game
Need for Speed Payback
With Payback, Need for Speed once again put the focus back on the narrative, but this time, the inspiration from the Fast and Furious games was obvious. The game featured a beautiful rendition of L.A and the wilderness around it, giving players the option to go offroad as well on top of the usual street racing, drifting, and drafting events.
One gripe that most players had withNeed for Speed Paybackwas its gacha-like upgrade system where players spin a wheel to win random upgrades for their vehicles. This was completely unexpected for a Need for Speed game and promoted a micro-transaction culture for the first time in this series. EA did improve this system a bit with updates after release, and once players get used to this system, Payback is a fun game.
5Need for Speed: Carbon
It’s All About the Togue-Style Racing
Need For Speed: Carbon
Coming right after what’s considered the best Need for Speed game of all time, Carbon had big shoes to fill, and it did surprisingly well. Instead of doing more of the same things that its prequel did, it went in a completely new direction and tried new stuff, some of which didn’t work but most of it did, and that alone set Carbon as one of the most unique titles in the franchise.
Need for Speed: Carbon is one of the few games in the franchise that has Togue-style racing, but no other title does this as well as Carbon does. To get past each boss, players had to do canyon races, which are essentially the same thing as togue races. And unlike the other titles, the threat of falling down a cliff while drifting is real here, which is why it feels like Carbon takes itself much more seriously, which is something that cannot be said about newer entries in this series.
4Need for Speed (2015)
An Excellent Attempt at Capturing NFS Underground’s Vibe
Need For Speed (2015)
The first entry in the franchise that came out after a developmental cycle of two years than the typical 1 year period was essentially a reboot of the entire series, simply called Need for Speed. I brought back some of the things from the ever-popular and decade-old Underground duology, such as in-depth vehicle customizations and night-time-only racing.
The game had drawbacks, such as being online-only and having an awkward story that was told using FMV. But players are still drawn to its surprisingly well-developed driving mechanics and the fact that EA might shut down the game’s servers at any point, making it more of a novelty. Itsupports a racing wheelfrom the get-go, which is always the best way to experience driving games.
3Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
Blazing-Fast Races With Cops on the Tail
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Bringing back the cop chases from the original Hot Pursuit and its sequel, Hot Pursuit 2, this reboot takes things up to eleven by including an entirely optional open-world and high-speed cop chases.
Review: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered takes players back to what these games used to be and looks great doing it.
The game features some of the fastest cars of its time and puts them neck to neck against cops chashing them in an equally-fast hypercar. There’s no story or anything that can distract players from the core gameplay, no additional playing modes like drag or drifting, just long races across a massive map with cops chasing the racers at breakneck speeds. Need for Speed barely gets better than that.
2Need for Speed: Underground 2
The First Ever Open-World Need for Speed Game
Need for Speed: Underground 2
The direct successor to the massively-successful Need for Speed Underground, this sequel brings back all of the good stuff from the original game, sprinkles some extra love and care, and packages it in the first-ever open world in a Need for Speed game. The hype surrounding this title was palpable, and even to this day, fans keep asking for a remake of the Underground 2, but to no avail.
In addition to the customizations and races already present in the previous entry, Underground 2 also added League races (also called URLs), drag races, and drift events. The roster of vehicles was expanded, a smidgen of a story was added and the customization options on vehicles were greatly improved. All in all, Underground 2 was the peak of Need for Speed, but only for a year.
1Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
The Very Best That Came From Need for Speed Franchise
It might be a cliche at this point, but the game to dethrone Underground 2 was Most Wanted in 2005, and nearly 20 years after its release, there’s yet to be a Need for Speed title that can take its place.
The game completely switched the narrative from night-time-only racing to day-time-only racing and added cop chases and vehicle combat for the first time in an open-world Need for Speed game. Its story, no matter how goofy, did manage to make the player’s blood boil after what Razor did to them. Winning everything back from Razor slowly is extremely satisfying. There are bounty milestones to complete and races to win before the player can challenge the next boss in the most wanted list of fifteen of Razor’s lackeys. To do that, they have to earn some bank and invest in their car, making for some of the most-satisfying progression in a Need for Speed game.
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