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Need for Speed™ Payback on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Set in the underworld of Fortune Valley, you and your crew were divided by betrayal and reunited by revenge to take down The House, a nefarious cartel that rules the city’s casinos, criminals and cops. In this corrupt gambler’s paradise, the stakes are high and The House always wins.
Need for Speed™ Payback is a racing, open world and multiplayer game
developed by Ghost Games
and published by Electronic Arts.
Released on June 18th 2020 is available only on Windows
in 11 languages: English, French, Spanish - Spain, Italian, German, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.
It has received 29,054 reviews of which 24,868 were positive and 4,186 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.4 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 29.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Need for Speed™ Payback into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Need for Speed™ Payback through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: 64-bit Windows 7 or later
- Processor: Intel i3 6300 @ 3.8GHz or AMD FX 8150 @ 3.6GHz with 4 hardware threads
- Memory: 6 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 750 Ti or AMD Radeon™ HD 7850 or equivalent DX11 compatible GPU with 2GB of memory
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 30 GB available space
Steam Price & Best Deals
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Need for Speed Payback – Review The Good Unlimited Garage Space A small but very welcome feature. You can collect as many cars as you want without worrying about storage limits, which fits perfectly with a game that encourages experimentation with different builds. Car Variety The variety of cars is excellent. There are more vehicles than ever before in the series, covering everything from classic muscle cars to modern supercars. This gives players plenty of options to experiment with different builds and styles. Customization The visual customization is one of the strongest aspects of the game. Neon lights return, nitro colors can be changed, tire smoke is customizable, and there are countless body parts available. Audio The car audio is phenomenal. Engine sounds are powerful, aggressive, and extremely satisfying to listen to. It’s easily one of the best sound designs in the entire Need for Speed series. 10/10 Map The map is huge. Terrain changes a lot depending on location, and the highways are a nice addition. It is easily one of the best maps in the Need For Speed series. The day and night cycle is great. Traffic intensity also changes depending on time of day. There are also nice details like shooting stars at night and planes taking off from the airport during the day. Good attention to detail. Snapshot Snapshot feature is great too. You can make insane photo shots, especially when you have unlimited car customization options. AI I completed the game on Hard difficulty. The AI is good and challenging. The Mixed Performance Customization Performance upgrades are unfortunately tied to a randomized card system. Instead of simply buying the parts you want, you must spin “tickets” and hope to receive useful upgrades. On top of that, you receive bonuses only if the cards match the same brand, which adds another unnecessary layer of randomness. This system feels more like a casino mechanic than proper car tuning. Car types: Drift / Runner / Race / Offroad I don't like this separation of cars in events. Why can't I use my car in all events? It is just bad design. Even if you have the same type of car, sometimes you still can't enter the event and need to buy the same car again, but for a different event type. That makes no sense and feels like the game is forcing you to waste money. Also, some cars are blocked from certain events completely. And you can't use all cars for a specific event type. Why? The Bad Handling The handling in this game is worse than in Need For Speed 2015. At high speed the steering has delay, which makes the cars feel less responsive and sometimes frustrating to control. The drift system still feels very similar to the previous game. When you press the handbrake the car can suddenly go in a strange direction, which often ruins the driving flow. Also there is no steering wheel support, even though the previous game had it. That is not progress. That is a huge step backwards. Crash cam This is the worst crash camera I have ever seen in a Need For Speed game. You can crash at high speed, regain control of the car, and continue driving — but then the screen suddenly fades to black and your car gets reset anyway. This is extremely annoying because the game interrupts you even when you recover the crash. There are also spots on the map where you drive slightly off the road and the game instantly respawns you even though you could easily recover. You can feel this especially during drift events. Jump locations Sometimes you try to jump from a mountain to the road below, which should be possible, but the game just respawns you instead. The game simply does not allow experimentation. This is just bad design and removes fun moments where players try creative shortcuts. Heat There is no police in free roam. Police chases are only scripted in runner missions, and they feel very repetitive. Most of the time you just pick up crates and drive to the same destination to escape. It always feels like driving from point A to point B. This is disappointing because the map had huge potential for intense police chases with roadblocks and freedom to escape however you want. Instead we get very limited scripted sequences. Events Events like Offroad, Drift, and Runner give very different amounts of money. The problem appears after finishing the main game. You end up farming money only on a few events because they pay well. Most other events become pointless because the rewards are too low. This hurts replay value. Glitches on Side Bet The requirements are bugged when you need to “clean drive” for 80 seconds. You can hit a small bump on an uneven road and the timer resets. It is not your fault that the suspension touches the ground and you lose all your progress. To complete this side bet you often need to drive very slow — but it’s supposed to be a race. Near miss requirements are also bad, because you need to be inches from another car. The developers should allow a bigger distance for this challenge. Many times you think you got a near miss, but the game does not count it. Even when you were already very close to the other car, it still does not register. Final thoughts Despite all the bad things, I still enjoyed playing this game. Need For Speed Payback has a great map, amazing customization, and excellent car sounds. But many design decisions hold it back especially the random upgrade system, restricted car classes, weak police mechanics, and frustrating crash camera. The game had the potential to be much better, but several bad design choices prevent it from reaching that level. Overall: 7/10
I mostly play this on my Steam Deck OLED, it runs at 60fps out of the box, rarely dips below 40fps. Don't let the bad reviews put you off, most of them complain that you need to sign into EA/Origin to play this, you truly don't. Steam does it all for you, each time you launch the game, it takes a few seconds longer to load, but that is it. I have never had to type my email in or any of that other nonsense, it just works. Perfect for handheld gaming.
I'm not going to lie, Payback was and, to an extent, still is overhated. Sure, the upgrading system is pretty awful when you're close to maxing out your car, but the game as a whole is pretty fun from beginning to end. The 2 online achievements suck, though... practically nobody plays this in multiplayer anymore. :/ It also goes on sale pretty frequently, so I'd recommend getting it then.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Need for Speed™ Payback is currently priced at 29.99€ on Steam.
No, Need for Speed™ Payback is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 29.99€ on Steam.
Yes, Need for Speed™ Payback received 24,868 positive votes out of a total of 29,054 achieving a rating of 8.40.
😎
Need for Speed™ Payback was developed by Ghost Games and published by Electronic Arts.
Yes, Need for Speed™ Payback is playable and fully supported on Windows.
No, Need for Speed™ Payback is not playable on MacOS.
No, Need for Speed™ Payback is not playable on Linux.
Need for Speed™ Payback offers both single-player and multi-player modes.
Need for Speed™ Payback offers both Co-op and PvP modes.
Yes, there are 4 DLCs available for Need for Speed™ Payback. Explore additional content available for Need for Speed™ Payback on Steam.
No, Need for Speed™ Payback does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, Need for Speed™ Payback does not support Steam Remote Play.
No, Need for Speed™ Payback does not currently support Steam Family Sharing.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Need for Speed™ Payback.
Data sources
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 16 July 2026 08:28 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 26 July 2026 05:53 UTC |
| Steam price | 28 July 2026 18:24 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 26 July 2026 21:53 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Need for Speed™ Payback, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Need for Speed™ Payback
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Need for Speed™ Payback concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Need for Speed™ Payback compatibility
Game modes
Multiplayer
Online players
180
Developer
Ghost Games
Publisher
Electronic Arts
Release
18 Jun 2020
Platforms