Need for Speed Rivals

Need for Speed Rivals is a racing video game developed in a collaboration between Ghost Games and Criterion Games, and published by Electronic Arts. It is the twentieth installment in the Need for Speed series. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 19 November 2013, and for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as launch titles in the same month.

Gameplay


Need for Speed Rivals is a racing game and features gameplay similar to earlier Need for Speed titles, such as Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Players take on the role of a Racer or Cop, with each side of the law offering its own play style. Rivals features eleven upgradeable gadgets such as EMPs, shockwaves, spike strips, and the ability to call in roadblocks. The game takes place in a fictional location known as Redview County. The open world environment features a similar set-up to Most Wanted, with several jumps, speed traps, and unlockable cars, as well as shortcuts that are not shown on the map.

Rivals features a career progression system for both Cop and Racer. Progression is made by means of Speedlists for Racer and Assignments for Cop, which are sets of objectives which involve dangerous driving, maneuvers, and race standings. When the player completes a set of objectives, the player levels up and unlocks new content, and is presented with another set of objectives to choose from.

The Autolog system, a competition-between-friends system, developed by Criterion for Hot Pursuit, lets an Assignment or Speedlist to other players' times and posts them to a Speed Wall for local and global leaderboards.

Rivals features a new social system called the AllDrive, which allows players to transition from playing alone, to playing with friends, described as "destroying the line between single player and multiplayer". This allows players to engage in co-op gameplay as well as play against each other. The game also features a dynamic weather system, which makes "the world feel alive in a much bigger sense than any other Need for Speed game".

Rivals also takes on some gameplay styles of earlier Underground titles in the franchise with cues on aesthetic vehicle personalization, such as paint jobs, decals, rims and license plates and liveries can be modified, as well as vehicle performance, and various 'Pursuit Tech' gadgets. With the exception for the Aston Martin Vanquish (and most DLC cars), all vehicles in the game are only available in either the racer or the police variant.

Origins
After the commercial and critical success of 2010's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Criterion Games executives stated that they wanted to draw from the series' roots and re-introduce old Need for Speed ideals. However, in 2011, EA Black Box released Need for Speed: The Run, which received mixed reviews. In 2012, EA Labels president Frank Gibeau said that although he was proud of the Black Box-developed installment, "he didn't want a 60, I want an 80+". On the subject of EA Black Box, Gibeau said the publisher would not be changing its alternating studio strategy. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012, Criterion vice president Alex Ward announced that the days of random developers churning out yearly Need for Speed installments were over. Ward would not confirm that all Need for Speed titles for the future would be developed wholly by Criterion, but did say that the studio would have "strong involvement" in them.

New studio
With EA Canada and Black Box restructured and refocused towards online and free-to-play games in February 2012, EA had already formed a new studio in 2011, EA Gothenburg. Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, it was reported that the studio would focus on development games using the Frostbite game engine. Also reported was that the studio was developing a game "in the Need For Speed franchise". According to the CVs of employees, much of the studio's staff had worked previously on major racing titles, including Forza Horizon, Need for Speed: The Run, Project Gotham Racing and Race Pro. On 22 October 2012, the series main developer Criterion Games confirmed that EA Gothenburg was working on a title in the Need for Speed franchise, but did not reveal the level of involvement or when the title would be released. On 15 November 2012, EA Gothenburg was rebranded as Ghost Games. Ghost's website went live around the same time and called for potential staff to apply for a range of open positions.

On 23 May 2013, EA confirmed their next Need for Speed game, Rivals, with a teaser trailer, following marketing material tease days before. It was also confirmed that Rivals was in the works at EA's Swedish games developer Ghost Games in partnership with Criterion Games. Ghost is headed up by former DICE executive producer Marcus Nilsson, who previously led development on games including Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, Battlefield 2142 and Shift 2: Unleashed. Rivals uses Frostbite 3.

The development team opted to target 30fps across all platforms instead of 60fps, because of the AllDrive feature. AllDrive is the system used to seamlessly matchmake players within the same open world. Another reason was due to the number of players able to be in the same world at the same time. The team asserted that while Rivals will be released on both current and next-gen systems, the versions would "ultimately be the same", aside from the graphics would look different, and next-gen would provide for more dynamic weather and gameplay.

Rivals is the first cross-platform next-gen games to achieve a native 1080p across both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Talk of resolutions and frame rates became a major point of contention between Sony and Microsoft's new consoles after it emerged that both Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 run at a higher resolution on Sony's PS4 console as compared to Microsoft's Xbox One.

On 30 August 2013, Ghost Games head Marcus Nilsson stated that the studio had been given complete charge of the Need for Speed franchise and that the franchise being bounced between multiple EA studios was not "consistent" with different game types. On 16 September 2013, Criterion Games had its staff numbers reduced to 17 people total, as the majority of the studio moved over to Ghost Games UK to work with Need for Speed games. Due to this, what remained of Criterion Games began work on a project of their own.

Because of the low sales of Most Wanted on the Wii U and PlayStation Vita, Rivals was not developed for those platforms.

Marketing and release
Rivals was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 19 November 2013 in North America, 21 November in Australia and 22 November in Europe. The PlayStation 4 version launched on 15 November 2013 in North America, while the Xbox One version launched on 22 November 2013.

On 21 October 2014, Need for Speed Rivals Complete Edition was released. It features all DLC packs (as well as all pre-order bonuses previously re-released in the "Fully Loaded Garage" DLC pack) along with the main game.

Reception
Need for Speed Rivals was well received by critics at E3 2013 and was awarded with "Best Racing Game" from Game Critics Awards. Previewers who had access to Rivals called the game a spiritual successor to 1999's Need for Speed: High Stakes, citing similar gameplay style. Others called it an improved version of Criterion's Hot Pursuit, citing similar gameplay mechanics.

Need for Speed Rivals received mostly positive reviews upon release. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 4 version 80.59% and 80/100, the Xbox One version 79.08% and 75/100,  the PlayStation 3 version 79.00% and 80/100,  the Microsoft Windows version 73.67% and 76/100  and the Xbox 360 version 71.43% and 76/100.

Steve Hannley of Hardcore Gamer gave the game a 4.5/5, saying "It’s raw, visceral, intense and boasts a ton of replay value thanks to over one hundred events and seamless online multiplayer."

Jeff Gerstmann from Giant Bomb gave the game a 3/5, praising the game's gameplay and soundtrack but criticized the lack of amount players allowed on the online multiplayer. Gerstmann also noted that the PC version was locked at 30 frames-per-second and stated that "is especially ridiculous", but still considered the PC version the best looking version.

GameZone's Mike Splechta gave the PS4 version an 8.5/10, stating "For a game that touts speed in its name, Need for Speed: Rivals delivers on every front. It's gorgeous, fast and definitely furious." Daniel Krupa for IGN scored the game an 8.0 and stated: "Fast, furious, and fun. NFS: Rivals blends Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted to great effect."

Negative reviews centered around the many bugs and glitches in the game, and frustrations around the game's lack of dedicated servers, triggering frequent host migration. There were also many clashing game features which caused frustrations for players, such as cops chasing players for no reason at all and the inability to pause the game at any time. Ghost Games also removed the ability to change from automatic to manual transmission.

Philip Kollar of Polygon gave the game an 8.5 out of 10, writing: "Need for Speed Rivals' technical shortcomings are frustrating primarily because almost everything else about the game is so well-designed and impressive. It builds on the series' legacy but also stretches into meaningful new directions. It may hit a few bumps, but if this is what Ghost Games can pull off in their first release and the first next-gen Need for Speed, the future is bright for this franchise."

Andrew Reiner of Game Informer gave high praise to the online multiplayer interactivity, stressing that the online features create an experience unlike any other. Reiner also called the game's visuals "drop dead gorgeous", and complimented the playability for making the game feel "silky smooth". Reiner gave the game a 9/10 and had minor criticisms. Nick Pino from GamesRadar also praised the visuals and controls, calling them "absolutely gorgeous" and "slick" respectively. Pino was critical of the car customization and damage, but commended the game world for feeling alive.

Eurogamer's Martin Robinson gave the game a 9/10 and called it "fantastic". He spoke well of the overall action gameplay, the points system, the sound design of the cars, the visuals, and the world design. Robinson's main criticisms were concerning the "obnoxious" soundtrack, the inability to pause the game, the world size, and the vehicle takedown systems.