When EA and Criterion Games released Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit back in 2010, critics and fans alike praised it as a breath of fresh air into the long-running street-racing franchise. A full decade later, the developer behind the original game has teamed up with Stellar Entertainment to bring it to the current console generation in the form of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered, which is set to arrive on November 6 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows and November 13 for the Nintendo Switch.
Just like in the original, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered’s Career mode is set in the fictional city of Seacrest, where street racers and police officers speed across various environments to see who is the fastest on the road. Players can get behind the wheel of the outlaw racers looking to compete in the world’s most exotic real-life cars, or take on the role of a lawman looking to chase down speed limit violators.
Racing in Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is relatively straightforward: players use their left stick to steer, their right trigger to accelerate, and their left trigger to brake. Both officers and street racers gain access to special tools to slow down their targets like road blocks, spike strips, and EMP blasts, which they can deploy by pressing the directional buttons. There is usually only one lap across a larger course, with players having to watch out for both their opponents and NPC vehicles that are just going about their regular day when an intense street race blows past them, as well as taking shortcuts across the surprisingly complex landscape.
At the end of a race, the player will be awarded a medal and any points they gained from their overall performance in the form of a Bounty score, which is used to increase their notoriety and unlock new courses and vehicles. Aside from regular races, there are also special variations to spice things up, like one-on-one duels and time trials where bumping into obstacles or other cars costs you valuable seconds. While the races are fun, the time trials can be a bit tedious given the lack of opponents to compete against.
Online play is now managed via a new feature called “Autolog,” which connects to players across the internet and even recommends events based on what a player’s friends have been playing. Additionally, the game includes a helpful crossplay feature, which allows players to race against each other online, even across different consoles. Other functions include “The Wall,” which is basically a message board for recording victories and record-setting race times. Finally, all of the Bounty points that players score online are added to their personal tallies, meaning they can advance their single-player careers even when playing with friends.
Of course, one of the main draws of a remaster is how the graphics look after being beefed up to meet the standards of modern systems and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered doesn’t disappoint. From the shiny finish of a car’s paint job to the reflection of police lights in a dark tunnel, everything is rendered beautifully - outside of a few instances of pixelation here and there. As for music, the Need For Speed franchise has always had great licensed soundtracks, and Hot Pursuit is no exception. Every song from 2010's original has been carried over to Remastered, providing players with several high-energy beats to play while tearing through the streets of Seacrest.
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is a solid update to a classic racing title, bringing the fun gameplay and blistering action of 2010's original to current systems with improved online functionality and new graphics. Whether choosing to burn rubber as an outlaw racer or a cop, this is now the best way to experience the thrills of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit either for the first time or all over again.
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered will be released on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 6, and the Switch on November 13. Screen Rant was provided a PlayStation 4 download code for the purpose of this review.