It's been a tough decade for the Need for Speed series. Between the 2015 soft reboot that became the poster child for wasted potential and the messy Payback, the EA franchise was at risk of losing its popularity. Then came 2019's NFS Heat and 2022's Unbound, which were absolutely solid. With over 100 hours in each, I can confidently state that the series needs to do more of what it did with its last two entries.

Still, it's no secret that this fabled racing series is currently in limbo. We first heard rumors about a remake of the 2005 Most Wanted, and a voice actor from the 20-year-old game even seemingly confirmed that. Now, however, the future is unclear, with EA putting all hands on deck for Battlefield 6 instead.

We might not know when the next NFS game will come out, but there's a lot it needs to learn from its own entries in the past 15 years. With Forza Horizon 5 coming over to PlayStation and effectively becoming the de-facto ruler of the arcade racer genre, the Need for Speed series really needs to get its act together and come out swinging for its next entry.

The next Need for Speed game can't afford to experiment

Polarizing visuals and celebrity cameos aside, the focus should be on the core game

The cel-shaded visuals of the world in Need for Speed Unbound, paired with the rather realistic look of the vehicles, was an interesting art design choice, to say the very least. Every drift, jump, collision, or nitrous boost came with its own cel-shaded animation emanating from the car, and I quite liked it. However, it's also easy to see how a significant chunk of the player base didn't.

In an era of photorealistic racing games like Gran Turismo and Forza Horizon, Need for Speed made a bold choice with Unbound's quirky visuals, but I don't think that is a trend that should continue. EA clearly cut costs on marketing the game to make it commercially successful, but Unbound didn't perform as well as Heat, which, anyway, was nowhere close to the series' peak. As such, the franchise can't afford any polarizing decisions like Unbound's cel-shaded campaign visuals.

While we're at it, there's nothing a celebrity cameo could bring to the next NFS game outside of added costs. A$AP Rocky's presence in NFS Unbound was... pointless. Outside of one cool-looking Benz, the celebrity cameo in the game was rather shoehorned, and did nothing for the overall gameplay, or the campaign. Why not steer clear of something like that and let the driving be the spectacle, not the sparkles around it?

Map design from older, better NFS titles must be chosen

There's no shame in picking the best from the past

There's a reason that everybody and their dog talks about how the NFS franchise doesn't hit the "way it used to". The series is no longer in its heyday, sure, but if it manages to scrape together one more entry, it needs to look at its own history and pick the very best elements.

If we're talking map design, there's no better place to look than the best NFS game in the past decade and a half, NFS Rivals. I've spoken at length about how fantastic the map design was in that game, with icy mountains, dusty desert roads and canyons, long, winding interstates that let you send it, and dark forests and beautiful cityscapes to crash into. However, considering just how phenomenal the city design in both NFS Heat's Palm City and Unbound's Lakeshore City is, the next NFS game should certainly add one thing missing from Rivals, which was a full-fledged city.

Rival's map diversity, combined with the city design in Heat, Unbound, or even 2012's Most Wanted, would make for the perfect NFS map. Now, I know what I'm describing is effectively something like Forza Horizon 5 or 4's map, but since that's also something that inarguably works well, and hasn't been done in EA's racing franchise, it certainly should be the way to go.

NFS needs to feel dangerous again

We need cops, risk, and high stakes

The one thing that every Need for Speed fan agrees on, is that cops are integral to the NFS experience. It doesn't feel like you're playing a Need for Speed game unless you've got a whole town's worth of police interceptors chasing you, crashing into you with as much reckless regard as you show for the city's traffic. That being said, the best version of cops in the series was in 2013's Rivals.

Rivals' cops were dangerous, fierce, and genuinely scary when the heat piled up, and you frantically looked for the nearest safe house. That's what we need more of — for every single cop chase to matter. There's a risk-reward system that comes with prolonged police pursuits, and for the best risk-reward system, we need to look no further than Heat. Day races were safer and for cash, and when the sun went down, the night races started where we earned rep and heat.

The next NFS game should look to build on this, and for that, I really wish they take a page out of an NFS game that came out last century — High Stakes. That game had truly meaningful progression — when you put up a pink slip on your car, you were terrified of losing it, and played like it in the High Stakes mode of one-on-one races. I want to win a race and sweat bullets knowing I could've lost my favorite tuned Skyline.

The one mistake they shouldn't repeat is Unbound's

Separating multiplayer and single-player progression shouldn't be on the table anymore

Admitted, it's a fine line between the game turning into a grindfest and actually having good progression, but the least EA can do for the next NFS is to ensure that they don't repeat what they did with Unbound — separating single-player and multiplayer progression. What's the point of me going through a campaign, collecting and kitting out the nicest cars, if I can't immediately drive around in them alongside my friends? That is one mistake that shouldn't repeat, period.

Lastly, the moment-to-moment gameplay requires intensity, and instead of relying on visual elements for that, the races themselves need to matter. I need to be afraid of an opponent inching closer, even if the finish line is far off, because they might have combat or pursuit tech I don't know about. The only way races are going to feel interesting from start to finish is to allow some degree of pursuit tech, a-la NFS Rivals. That way, the devs can also turn the cop difficulty up to eleven, since we're going to be able to hold our own.

Above all, the next NFS game should be 'peak NFS'

That covers how it drives, sounds, and lets me make the cars mine

Something the NFS franchise needs to understand full well is that the Forza Horizon series has redefined what an arcade racer means. I say this because there's a reason older NFS games felt right. ProStreet had grounded heft, and Hot Pursuit had tight chaos, with weight behind every drift and subsequent crash. Recent NFS entries, however, have seen the physics veering too far into floaty, loose territory. Compare that to something like the two latest Forza Horizon iterations, and it's night and day.

It's time NFS finds that sweet spt again, and if they need to completely revamp their physics engine, so be it. Let the cars feel powerful. Let off-road actually matter. Let me crash through a guardrail and feel it.

Finally, we need to talk about the soundtrack, EA. EA Trax used to define a generation. Most Wanted 2005, Underground 1 and 2, Rivals, and even the 2012 Most Wanted — these games had banger after banger in their soundtrack. Heat and Unbound, on the other hand, were both forgettable in the music department, and that's coming from someone who downloads entire NFS albums every single time a new game drops.

I can't stop loving Need for Speed. I just wish it loves me back

I've played every Need for Speed game ever made. Yes, that includes Undercover, too — twice. It will always be the racing series that shaped my love for the genre. Outside of Driveclub, nothing else even comes close to how much I care about this franchise. And that is exactly why it hurts to see it trapped in this strange limbo, unsure of what it wants to be.

The next entry could very well be the last in this franchise if it doesn't become a worldwide success. It doesn't need gimmicks, TikTok filters, or awkward celebrity cameos. It just needs to drive like a dream, sound like a riot, and god, feel like Need for Speed again.