Need For Speed Unbound Hot Pursuit review: we fought the law and the law won

Everybody understands the rules of the road. Drive to the speed limit. Give way if the obstacle is on your side. Signal that you’re the worst kind of driver by opting for a gel number plate. Nod to people driving the same car as you, unless theirs is from the previous gen, in which case maintain a fixed and aloof gaze ahead. Fail to obey these rules, and you’re breaking the law.

While the lawmakers of Need For Speed Unbound generally take a more liberal view towards speeding, property damage and wildly illegal vehicle modifications, there is still a police force patrolling the streets and, with the launch of Volume 8, that police force will engage in a particularly spectacular form of chase when prompted.

This is modern NFS getting in touch with its roots. As far back as Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit, these games offered the thrill of the chase. Once it was as simple as outrunning the sirens over the course of an arcade point-to-point race. In 2024, the age of the season pass; the audience retention years; the live service dynasty; it works differently.

It’s still a laugh, you understand. But a nuanced one, like the slowly rising chuckle one might give at a Stewart Lee gig. In its Hot Pursuit PvP playlists, racers swap roles, alternating between the law-defying escapologists and the police force. The objectives are simple for each side: complete the checkpoint race without getting wrecked, or wreck all the racers before they complete the checkpoint race.

As a racer, you’ve got access to the usual garage of cars you’ve collected in the main game, customisations and all. They’re all tuned up to S tier when you join, but fret not – the exact placement of your gaudy vinyls and aggressively wide body mods is all retained. It’s great to have another sub-set of activities for these cars - any excuse to wheel out the 1988 190E really - and to have another means of gathering cash.

For cops, you’ve now got a new garage of police vehicles from around the world to collect and modify. Again, a nice dab of added depth to what could have been a flimsy inclusion for nostalgia’s sake, and there’s an odd thrill to seeing recognisable police liveries. Included in the process of making a massive fluorescent Range Rover ‘yours’ is the addition of pursuit tech.

Spike strips, roadblocks and EMP bursts are among the arsenal here. When these gadgets are deployed, an already chaotic car chase becomes so destructive that you can’t help but wonder if it might have been better for the public good to just let the racers off and do a plates check back in the office.

Pursuit tech is important. It really swings the advantage towards the cops, and that makes it worth grinding for – you acquire these tech items to equip on your cars as you level up the police career by completing events and busting [checks notes] ‘perps’.

But among the morass of spike strips and wrecked cars pinging around like basketballs on the freeway, some of the enjoyable simplicity and the rewards for driving skill seem to have given way.

This isn’t about taking corners quicker than your adversaries and using your pace advantage to escape or close in. You figure that out pretty sharpish when you realise that as the police you’re always able to teleport yourself ahead of the racers.

Instead, a different skill set’s required. Well-timed ramming (harder than it sounds) and judiciously deployed pursuit tech are the difference makers. On one hand, it dilutes the feeling of ‘evading’ the cops because what happens in Hot Pursuit isn’t much like the cop chases you see on telly. It looks more like a WWE pay-per-view, a jamboree of vehicular suplexes and exhaust-bending Rock Bottoms.

On the other: Unbound is already stuffed to its air intake pipes with other ways to make the difference with driving skill alone. This is something different. It’s closer to the battle royale-like modes of Forza Horizon and The Crew Motorfest, where the emphasis is on preserving your health bar and battering someone else’s.

Speaking of The Crew Motorfest, Ubisoft Ivory Tower has its own cops and robbers mode incoming this autumn. We’ll soon be spoiled for choice about how we want to enforce highway law, and that can only be a good thing. Until then, it’s worth embracing a bit of grind and putting some hours into making yourself a mobile roadblock in Unbound.