Need for Speed Unbound

Summary

For the first half of my Producer internship at Criterion Games, I helped to develop and ship the final two live-service updates to Need for Speed Unbound:

VOLUME 8: COPS VS. RACERS

  • Hot Pursuit Mode: 4v4 high-octane street battles.

  • Pursuit Tech: EMP, ESF battering ram, and Spike Strip gadgets.

  • Cop Progression: Upgrade arsenal with new Cop cars & gadgets.

  • New Rides: 2 new Rides and 9 new Cop cars.

  • Speed Pass: 45 new tiers of unlockable content.

VOLUME 9: LOCKDOWN

  • New Mode: 5 squads of up to 3 players in PvPvE multiplayer.

  • Lockups: Escape the Zone to keep any acquired Hot Rides.

  • Extraction Play: Claim the Extraction Truck before rivals do.

  • Motorbikes: Introduced for the first time in NFS history.

  • Speed Pass: 45 new tiers of unlockable content.

Trailer

Volume 9 Trailer - Introducing Lockdown (Unbound’s innovative PvPvE extraction mode), as well as ridable Bikes - a first for the NFS franchise.

PLATFORM

TEAM

DURATION

Racing

GENRE

ENGINE

Frostbite


Console & PC

Live Service

5 Months

Rising Star of the Year (Criterion Games Annual Awards 2024)

ACHIEVEMENTS


Impact

  • Coordinated daily playtests to rally the team around software, foster iteration, and drive quality.

  • Captured bugs, feedback, and any other noteworthy comments that were verbalised during playtests (compiled into reports), with individual points followed up with relevant stakeholders.

  • Collaborated with the Lead Designer to establish OKRs - focused on experiential feature goals to consolidate the player experience while holding the team accountable to their output.

  • Partnered with the Development Director to distribute feature development within a roadmap across multiple sprints.

  • Created player journey maps and conducted reviews to assess progress related to flows and goals.

  • Supported QA and UXR teams to curate game builds for external playtesting, which involved proactively escalating impactful PX issues to drive fixes ahead of testing.

  • Assembled strike teams with testing plans to diagnose any outstanding issues while rallying the involvement of QA partners and developer stakeholders.

  • Built a relationship with the Player Council focus group to understand the needs of players within a diverse community of fans.

  • Rationalised feedback from playtesting initiatives and shared findings with stakeholders in presentations.

  • Researched and harnessed the full build pipeline to optimise build selection ahead of testing initiatives.

  • Prioritised bugs within the team according to my holistic knowledge of the product and team, as well as the stage of the project - adjusting where necessary.

  • Updated the game’s Credits to include individuals who made contributions during the game’s live-service period, so everyone was credited for their hard work.

Player Reception

PC (Steam) Reviews for Need for Speed Unbound increased to Mostly Positive following the release of Volume 9: Lockdown.

Check out what the players thought about the update below:

Credit - BlackPanthaa

Credit - gameranx

Credit - CrownSiNz