Need for Speed Most Wanted
The open-world action in Need for Speed Most Wanted gives you the freedom to drive your way. Hit jumps and shortcuts, switch cars, lie low or head for terrain that plays to your vehicle’s unique strengths. Fight your way past cops and rivals using skill, high-end car tech and tons of nitrous.
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Need for Speed™ Rivals on Steam
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Erase the line between single player and multiplayer in this street-racing rivalry between Cops and Racers. Seamlessly join a world where your friends are already racing and chasing
Need for Speed™ Rivals is a racing, driving and open world game
developed by Criterion Games
and published by Electronic Arts.
Released on June 04th 2020 is available on Windows, Steam Deck and Steam Machine.
It has received 8,851 reviews of which 6,633 were positive and 2,218 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.3 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 19.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Need for Speed™ Rivals into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Need for Speed™ Rivals 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
- OS *: Windows 7 (Service Pack 2) 32-Bit
- Processor: Intel 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo or AMD 2.8 GHz Athlon X2
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: AMD Radeon 3870 512 MB or higher performance; NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or higher performance; Intel HD 4000 Integrated 512 MB or higher performance
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 30 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX compatible
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User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
TLDR: Decent game, fans of Hot Pursuit 2010 will likely enjoy it a lot, but play it with mods if you really want to get everything out of it. Picked this up during the 90% sale, overall an enjoyable game, but it definitely has its flaws. Here are some important things to keep in mind if you're considering buying it: 1. THE DLCS NO LONGER WORK - since the online servers were shut down last year, the DLC authorization doesn't work anymore - you won't have any of the content from the Complete Edition. Fortunately there is a way to mitigate this which you can easily find on the Steam forums - you can download a save from some years ago when the online servers still worked, so the DLC cars are automatically assigned to your garage. I only found this out after beating the racer career. Additionally, there used to be a feature called Overwatch that unlocked two cars, the Bentley Continental and the Maserati GranTurismo - the save I mentioned doesn't unlock them, but you can get a mod called Overwatch Unlocker to access them if you really want (they're both entry level cars and are honestly mid). 2. You can't pause the game - when you press the pause button it opens up the map, but everything around you keeps going, just like an always online game. There's no way to change this, even if you set the now useless AllDrive to singleplayer mode. This is particularly annoying when you're playing as a racer - wanna go to the bathroom? Too bad, some cop AI might have a temper tantrum and come after you for zero reason, and your Speed Points will be gone when you come back. 3. The difficulty level is ridiculously easy - it's generally really easy to pass the other racers, and if you crash, the AI will come to a full stop, let you pass them, and then wait 3-5 business days to start driving again. I've yet to play another NFS game where it's this bad. 4. The cops are FAR more powerful than racers - they're much faster and hit much harder. The economy is also different - as a cop, you don't get an SP multiplier and don't lose it if you get wrecked. You don't have to spend it on buying cars, but the Pursuit Tech is significantly more expensive. 5. Progression as a racer isn't very motivating - after you finish the final race, you unlock the ability to complete all the Speedlists you didn't choose earlier. This is good as a cop, since for every Speedlist you finish, you unlock a new car, but as a racer, all you get is liveries. There's 201 stunts in total, but since the game doesn't feature achievements, there isn't really a reason to do them other than for your own satisfaction. It's not all bad though - there's a lot of events to keep you busy, and if you don't feel like doing said events, there's nothing stopping you from enjoying the semi-open world map and just driving around. Speaking of the map, it's very reminiscent of the one in Hot Pursuit 2010, featuring the same kind of biomes, sometimes even straight up copying the road layouts, just on a larger scale. As a long time fan of HP2010, this is great for me. The graphics are outstanding for the time, and the game runs very well even on outdated half-decent PCs (I have a GTX 1070). If you want to enhance your experience, consider playing with mods. It's important to note that you'll have to mess around with a mod manager and an entirely different method of launching the game, and while this isn't at all complicated, it might be an issue for some people. Here's some mods I used and can recommend: 1. Rivals Unlocked - framerate unlocker, you can set it to anything you want to, I used 60 and it runs very smoothly even with mods; 2. Rivals Plus - complete overhaul, makes the game significantly harder, more polished, fixes the DLC issue, offers enhanced graphics (I used 5.0, makes it look like Payback) and much more. I'd recommend playing with the graphics mod, beating the game, and then replaying it with the full mod for a more engaging playthrough; 3. Overwatch Unlocker - unlocks the Bentley and Maserati I mentioned before, not necessary if you use Rivals Plus, but if you don't, I'd at least get this one. Base game: 5/10 - would've been a 7 if not for the DLC issue Modded game: 9/10 - soundtrack is still meh
The Fixes & Enhancements I am writing this review to rescue the unfortunate souls who would otherwise endure the unspeakable peasantry of playing this game at anything less than the finest quality. 1. Unlock DLC & Overwatch Content If you're having trouble accessing DLC or OverWatch exclusive content (Total : 34 Racer Cars & 103 Cop Cars) due to the server shutdown, use this https://steamcommunity.com/app/1262600/discussions/0/690872031640580139/ 2. 60fps & Above Without Physics Break Unlock high frame rates upto 200fps without breaking the physics, which other so-called fixes tend to do. https://github.com/Brawltendo/NFS-Rivals-Framerate-Unlocker 3. Increased Render Distance (Reduce Pop-ins) & Vegetation/Mesh/Terrain Quality Go to C:\Users\YourUsername\Documents\Ghost Games\Need for Speed(TM) Rivals\settings\ Open PROFILEOPTIONS_profile. Then set these values and save: GstRender.MeshQuality 3 GstRender.UndergrowthQuality 3 GstRender.ShadowQuality 3 GstRender.TerrainQuality 3 GstRender.EffectsQuality 3 4. Increase Texture Quality, Better V-Sync & Low Latency Set everything in graphics settings to max and turn off in-game Vsync Go to Nvidia Control Panel and set these: (a) VSync: Full (b) Low Latency: Ultra (c) Smooth Motion: On (d) Anisotropic Filtering: 16x (e) Texture Filtering - Quality: High Quality (f) Texture Filtering - Negetive LOD Bias: Clamp (g) Texture Filtering - Trilinear Optimisation: Off (h) Antialiasing - Transperancy: 8x (supersample) (i) Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA): On 5. Enhanced Audio For enhanced audio, use FxSound from Microsoft Store. Set it to Gaming. https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/xp8jk4tbq03lz4 6. Controller Support The game includes full native support for Xbox controllers. If you're using a different controller, simply install DS4Windows and configure it to emulate an Xbox controller. Once that's done, your controller should work without any issues. https://ds4-windows.com/ 7. Modding Support You can use Frosty Mod Manager to heavily customize the game. Add new content, improve visuals, tweak gameplay, and remove the stuff you don't like. It gives you a lot of control over how the game looks and plays. https://github.com/CadeEvs/FrostyToolsuite/releases 8. Quality of Life Mods (a) Enhanced Visual Car Damage : https://www.nexusmods.com/needforspeedrivals/mods/49 (b) Enhanced Draw Distance & LOD : https://www.nexusmods.com/needforspeedrivals/mods/38 (c) Increased Quantity of AI Racers & Cops During Freeroam : https://www.nexusmods.com/needforspeedrivals/mods/45 (d) Reduced Controller Steering Deadzone : https://www.nexusmods.com/needforspeedrivals/mods/37 (e) Better NOS Effects : https://nfsmods.xyz/mod/7545 9. New Game+ If you’ve already completed the game once and want to experience it again with improved graphics, enhanced gameplay, and a greater challenge, I highly recommend trying the NFS Rivals Plus mod. It gives the game a fresh feel while making the overall experience more challenging and enjoyable. https://www.nexusmods.com/needforspeedrivals/mods/1 10. Photo Mode (FreeCam with HUD Toggle & Time Freeze) You can use this tool to enable Free Cam, Time Freeze, and HUD Toggle, making it easy to capture beautiful, cinematic screenshots. https://www.reddit.com/r/needforspeed/comments/oi2nf1/nfs_rivals_cinematic_tools_i_mightve_found_it/ Instructions : (a) Set both the application and NFS Rivals to run as administrator in the compatibility option. (b) Start your game. It important to start your game first and then the application, otherwise the game will crash. Use Alt+Tab to switch to desktop. (c) Disable your internet connection before launching the application. The application checks for updates from a defunct website, which may cause issues during startup. Once the application has started successfully, you can re-enable your internet connection and leave the application running in the background. Finally, click ENABLE on the main screen to activate the tool. It should have a GUI pop up like a command prompt. This will indicate that the application is active. (c) Once in game, go to your location of choice for the screenshot and control the camera with hotkeys and controller as under: INSERT = Enable camera DELETE = Freeze time HOME = Toggle UI Right & Left Thumsticks : Camera Control Right & Left Bumpers : Camera Rotation Right & Left Triggers : Camera Height Screenshot : Company Logo Button (Xbox/PS/Generic) + Right Trigger (RT) (d) Explore the various settings available in the application. It offers a wide range of interesting and useful tools, so feel free to experiment and find the features that work best for you. What I Think Once one has undertaken the modest labour of rectifying the game's technical shortcomings, what emerges is, without hesitation, one of the most irresistibly addictive entries the Need for Speed franchise has ever bestowed upon its admirers. The interaction between the cop and the racer is the edgiest shii ever committed to a script. These two don't have a conversation so much as engage in competitive aura farming. Every sentence sounds forged in the fires of a 14-year-old's secret diary, and I mean that with the utmost affection. The delivery is so aggressively cool it loops right back around to being magnificent. The timeless contest between racer and law enforcement is elevated to remarkable new heights through the wager system, which transforms every excursion upon the open roads into an exercise in calculated audacity. The rewards earned through reckless driving aren't yours to claim the instant they're earned. As your Heat level rises, your earnings multiply, presenting an ever-growing temptation to press onward in pursuit of greater riches. Yet therein lies the dilemma: retreat to a safehouse and secure your fortune, surrendering your Heat and returning to level zero, or continue your perilous escapade in hopes of multiplying your winnings further, all while risking the complete forfeiture of your hard-earned spoils. Quite frankly, I find this system magnificent. It imbues every pursuit with an intoxicating suspense, not unlike an elaborate game of chance wherein wisdom lies not merely in knowing how to win, but in discerning the precise moment at which one ought to depart the table. The musical accompaniment is likewise exceptional, complemented by audio mixing of an equally commendable standard. Each composition arrives with a satisfyingly weighty emphasis upon the bass, ensuring every race is infused with an almost relentless surge of adrenaline. The soundtrack possesses an infectious energy perfectly suited to the breakneck pace of the experience. As for the original score, whilst it may not linger long in one's memory, it performs its appointed duty with quiet competence, enhancing the atmosphere without demanding undue attention. The police pursuits are, without exaggeration, among the game's greatest triumphs. They are ferocious, exhilarating affairs that escalate in intensity and peril as one's Heat level rises. Far from becoming a nuisance, these encounters are contests I eagerly seek out, for the officers display an aggression that makes every successful escape feel genuinely earned. Better still, the gradual acquisition of more advanced countermeasures ensures these confrontations only become more entertaining as the campaign progresses. Of the various gadgets at the player's disposal, the Shockwave has swiftly secured its place as my undisputed favourite, possessing immense practicality and a deeply satisfying flair that never fails to transform an already thrilling chase into an unforgettable spectacle.
No, it's NOT underrated! Rating: 7.5/10 Good: - Phenomenal faceless-story presentation, amazing style overall - 2 Campaigns - Play as Cop & Racer - Fantastic credit song - "Love Songs Drug Songs" Bad: - Game is technically very rough. 30 FPS lock. Shimmering visuals. Few minor bugs - No DLC access anymore because servers are down!! MF EA - Open world game but not immersive. Constant switch between menus & loading forced due to 1 roguelike element - Speed Points. Gained by playing, required to buy cars/upgrade - Can't even pause this single-player game! - Only 2 banger radio song "Lootin in London", "Pompeii" but barely audible. Sound mixing issue. Also cops involved most of the time so radio turns off. We need bangers for thrill! - AI balancing felt off.. game on hardcore side but experience is inconsistent with AI enemies.. luck matters - Didn't really enjoy Tech Gadgets like stun, EMP, etc as a Racer - To progress story, you have to finish few choosen objectives like raming vehicles, stunning enemies, etc. I did not really like doing that FPS/Graphics fix: - Use Lossless Scaling Frame Gen x3 to get 90 FPS. Other method breaks game engine - Set game's Launch option as follows in steam: -Render.ResolutionScale 2.0 -noborder - Apply LSFG after toggling Borderless fullscreen with Alt+Enter Note: Render Scale 2.0 apparently affects GUI elements in game-world, hence hides Turn-markings in road. Makes it a lot harder to race while monitoring direction in mini-map like I did! Game has a style I really love, but wish it was better.
Need for Speed: Rivals - A Ghost in the Machine That Still Outruns Everything | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ In 2026, NFS Rivals is a ghost (ironically enough given the studio's name no pun was intended). The servers are dead, the companion app is a tombstone, and yet the UI still cheerfully advertises "race with friends" and online modes that haven't existed for years. Nobody at EA thought to remove them. The same goes for NFS Overdrive or whatever that companion app was called - advertised in-game, completely non-functional, still sitting there. For a game built around a rebellious, live-on-the-edge street racing identity, there's something almost poetic and deeply ironic about it being preserved in amber with phantom features haunting every menu screen. Oh, and there's still no pause button (that actually PAUSES the game!). On what is now a STRICTLY single-player game. And then there's the autodrive tutorial - a five-minute handholding session at launch explaining a feature that has existed in racing games since the PS2 era, as if the player has never touched a controller in their life. It kills momentum right when the game should be pulling you in. Condescending, unnecessary, and a very EA thing to do. And yet despite all of its flaws - I don't care. Not even a little. Coming from NFS Most Wanted (my all-time favorite, including the criminally underrated PSP 5-1-0 port), and having played through NFS Payback, NFS Heat, Forza Horizon 5, and both The Crew titles - Rivals tops nearly all of them. The cop AI alone demolishes anything the franchise has produced since. Chases are fluid, tense, and - crucially - you can actually outrun them. Remember that? Because NFS Heat apparently forgot, hard-coding cops to teleport onto you regardless of skill or distance. That wasn't a design choice, that was a regression - and a baffling one from a series that had been doing this correctly for years. Rivals makes cops feel like a genuine threat you can outsmart and outrun through actual driving skill. That tension is everything in this genre and almost nobody gets it right anymore. Playing as a cop is genuinely one of the most satisfying experiences in the franchise - relentless, ruthless, and mechanically rewarding on both sides of the law. The random cop spawns keep you on edge, and the escalating risk-reward system as heat levels rise is brilliantly simple. My structural gripe is the objective checklist progression - a more linear career would have felt far more natural. Ticking boxes to unlock the next stage breaks the flow of what is otherwise a beautifully paced chase-driven game. Now - Pursuit Tech and Racer Tech. I get it, in theory. In an online environment where you're up against a coordinated human cop, having an EMP or a shockwave as counterplay makes sense as a balancing mechanic. But in single player? It completely removes tension. You become overpowered, the cops stop feeling threatening, and the whole cat-and-mouse dynamic that makes this game special deflates. It reads exactly like what it probably was - a multiplayer balancing tool awkwardly carried over into the solo experience without much thought. The spike strip cutscenes triggering far too easily are another pacing killer. They interrupt high-speed chases at the worst possible moments, turning what should feel cinematic and fluid into something choppy. You get used to it, and yes, modern racing games do this too - but less would genuinely be more here. Where Rivals quietly does something almost no modern racing game bothers with: progressive car damage. As your car takes hits it visually deteriorates - panels warping, bodywork crumbling - and it creates this genuine anxiety of I need to get to a repair station or I lose everything. That feeling of risk attached to your vehicle is immersive in a way that dedicated racing titles in 2026 have completely abandoned. The fact that GTA - which is not even a racing franchise - handles this better than most of the genre is a damning observation about where things have gone. The soundtrack is an outright banger. The Qemists, Linkin Park, and a high-energy roster that makes every pursuit feel alive. I also caught remixed NFS Most Wanted 2005 cop-chase tracks buried in there - and yes, 20 years on from that game's PS2 release, that hit harder than expected. Visually, Rivals holds up better than it has any right to. The terrain, the leaf physics, the lighting during chases - it competes genuinely with titles released years later. The story leans hard into unapologetic edginess and cinematic attitude, and honestly? It works. Now the big technical caveat, and I won't soft-pedal it: the game is hard-locked at 30fps and typically runs closer to 25 without manually tweaking Steam's advanced launch options. For a racing game - where visual feedback at speed directly affects your reaction time and sense of control - this isn't a minor gripe, it's the single biggest failure of this port. Screen tearing compounds it further. EA should have patched this years ago and never did. If you're used to 60fps or above, your first impression will be that your PC can't handle it. It can. The game is just artificially throttling itself for no good reason in 2026. As for replayability - honestly? Rivals lives in that specific territory of games you keep on the shelf. You won't necessarily grind it endlessly, but when the mood strikes - when you want that particular rush of a perfectly executed police chase at 2am - it'll be there. Some games are experiences you revisit like a favorite film rather than a live-service obligation, and that's completely valid. Summary: in 2026, where cop-chase arcade racers are basically extinct and the genre has either gone open-world bloat or forgotten what made it exciting, Rivals has aged into something rare and valuable. It runs on roughly 10GB - a size that shames every modern open-world racer - costs around €2 on sale, and delivers a tighter, more thrilling experience than Tokyo Xtreme Racer does at €40. Twenty times the price. A fraction of the soul. Buy it without hesitation. Play both sides. Feel what this genre used to be.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Need for Speed™ Rivals is currently priced at 19.99€ on Steam.
No, Need for Speed™ Rivals is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 19.99€ on Steam.
Yes, Need for Speed™ Rivals received 6,633 positive votes out of a total of 8,851 achieving a rating of 7.33.
😊
Need for Speed™ Rivals was developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts.
Yes, Need for Speed™ Rivals is playable and fully supported on Windows.
No, Need for Speed™ Rivals is not playable on MacOS.
No, Need for Speed™ Rivals is not playable on Linux.
Yes, Need for Speed™ Rivals is playable on Steam Deck, though it might require a few minor tweaks. Make sure to check the Steam store page and community feedback on ProtonDB for exact compatibility details.
Yes, Need for Speed™ Rivals is playable on Steam Machine, though it might require a few minor tweaks. Make sure to check the Steam store page and community feedback on ProtonDB for exact compatibility details.
No, Need for Speed™ Rivals does not support VR.
Need for Speed™ Rivals offers both single-player and multi-player modes.
Need for Speed™ Rivals offers both Co-op and PvP modes.
Yes, there is a DLC available for Need for Speed™ Rivals. Explore additional content available for Need for Speed™ Rivals on Steam.
No, Need for Speed™ Rivals does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, Need for Speed™ Rivals does not support Steam Remote Play.
No, Need for Speed™ Rivals 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™ Rivals.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 19 September 2026 12:29 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 22 October 2026 18:13 UTC |
| Steam price | 26 October 2026 19:31 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 19 October 2026 05:54 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Need for Speed™ Rivals, 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™ Rivals
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Need for Speed™ Rivals concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Need for Speed™ Rivals compatibility
Game modes
Multiplayer
Online players
42
Developer
Criterion Games
Publisher
Electronic Arts
Release
04 Jun 2020
Platforms