Hands-On: Need for Speed Payback Has Cars, Characters, and Casino Puns

Once upon a time there was a video game calledBurnout Paradise, a brilliant and innovative open-world reinvention of the chaotic racing franchise. It was the last true Burnout game ever released, but when publisher EA instead unleashed the team at Criterion Games on the Need for Speed franchise, the Burnout Paradise legacy carried on a little longer in thrilling open-world racers Hot Pursuitand Most Wanted.

However, after some staff reorganization, the Need for Speed games from successor studio Ghost Games just couldn’t do it anymore for old Burnout die-hards like me. Meanwhile, the biggest rival racing games like Forza were leaning more towards their realistic sim elements. So after the less-than-stellar reception to 2015’s would-be reboot simply titled Need for Speed, the developers took a year off and used the extra time to make some big improvements.

Need for Speed: Payback isn’t definitely not a racing sim. The developers prefer to call it an “action-driving game” as opposed to just a racing game, or a “CARPG” even. Not only that, it may even be the beginning of a whole new dramatic universe of Need for Speed games. What does that all even mean? I recently got to go hands on with Need for Speed: Payback to find out.

Need for Speed: Payback puts a huge emphasis on its narrative. Right from the start players hop between different, diverse members of a quippy, Fast and Furious-esque racing gang. Ghost Games wants Payback to be the first of many adventures with these characters (portrayed via motion-capture and not the live-action actors of previous games), and at the very least they’re more charming than anyone from the recent inexplicable Need for Speed movie (which the developers don’t talk about).

Although I played for over an hour, I only saw the beginning of Payback’s actual story, a story that should last nearly 20 hours. When a big score goes awry, you must reunite your crew and get revenge against criminal syndicate The House, who of course always win. That’s just the first of many casino puns you’ll hear in the Las Vegas-inspired Fortune Valley city Payback takes place in. I nearly lost it when my boss told me, “I decide when the cards fall.”

The focus on story also gives Payback a justification for big, action-packed, spectacle driving gameplay set pieces. An early mission has you competing in a race, but your ranking doesn’t actually matter because soon enough you peel away from the pack to simply steal the car you’re driving and evade the cops by making sick jumps. Another mission has you winning a race that was supposed to be fixed, incurring the wrath of the fixers. Not all of these missions are as ridiculous as others, but there will be a handful of large-scale “blockbuster” missions that reminded me of Grand Theft Auto V’s acclaimed heists.

The story also leaves plenty of room for nonlinear exploration. You can just drive all around taking on new races, missions, cop chases, and other events. Bet on yourself to earn extra cash if you win a race, although you can’t be corrupt and purposefully lose to also make money. The Autolog social network returns to let you interact with friends, but unlike the last Need for Speed, you can thankfully play Payback offline. The arcade-style “casual competitive” gameplay has an excellent sense of gorgeous speed on PlayStation 4 Pro, teetering on the right side of “just out of control.” It takes skill but you don’t need to buy a racing wheel or spend hours tweaking your friction coefficient to have fun.

That said, Payback does have plenty of customization options, even if I was able to jump in and have fun without engaging with them. As a “CARPG” you can collect and upgrade different rides across different classes like race, drag, and drift using scrap metal. This is presented through an accessible card-based interface. There are also a handful of legendary “derelict” cars that are initially garbage but can become some of the best vehicles in the game with enough work. Fortunately the microtransactions only offer cosmetics and not stat-increasing parts, which we cleared up after an initial misunderstanding conflating loot boxes with the unrelated “bait crate” cop missions.

This is also perhaps the impressive world featured in a Need for Speed game. No longer confined to just urban streets, Fortune Valley has several different outdoor biomes for varied off-road racing. Ride out of the city and into the mountains. It feels like Forza Horizon. There’s also a full day and night cycle, not perpetual gray rain. Again, this was a benefit of taking a year off and really letting the Frostbite engine technology mature.

But while the racing shows promise, it’s Need for Speed: Payback’s story that gives the game its silly but distinct identity. And that’s definitely by design. I talked to the game’s executive producer Marcus Nilsson who said the goal of Payback wasn’t just to fix the last game’s issues but also present a clear path forward for the franchise. The extra motivation a story inspires in a player might be the thing to keep them invested in these racing games over others.

I also asked if previous Need for Speed characters, like the infamous Razor Callahan, might make an appearance if Payback really is doubling down on Fast and Furious-style extended lore. For what it’s worth, Nilsson’s answer didn’t dash my dreams.