Under the Hood. Part 1

Welcome to the first installment of the “Under the Hood” blog series! Here we’ll regularly talk about what goes on behind the scenes of Need for Speed. In this installment, we’ll discuss your feedback that we received after the game’s release, and also briefly cover what to expect in the update.

Last week was special for Ghost Games — we entered a new era of Need for Speed, and we’re incredibly proud of that. However, this is only the beginning.

Before we start talking about future innovations, we’d like to take a couple of minutes to… thank you. You, our fans, have helped us incredibly all this time, and all the words of support and feedback we’ve received since the announcement that development had begun have pushed us to create a better Need for Speed.

The future of Need for Speed depends equally on us and on you, so keep leaving feedback. We are doing everything we can to create not only the game you want, but also the game you deserve.

We can’t wait to show the living game, as we call it, where updates will be released. We’ll keep adding the latest content, improvements, and fixes to Need for Speed, which will arrive in just a few weeks in the first update.

We reviewed your feedback during the game’s launch period and, in addition, studied online reviews and criticism. One of the topics of discussion we saw was an issue with AI rubber-banding. We’ve taken this into account and are working on AI balancing, and the results will be visible in the first update of the living game.

Last week we released a fix for the stuttering that occurred on Xbox One. The first reports are positive so far — some players report that this problem is over, but as always, we’ll continue to monitor it.

The first update of the living game is due by the end of November, and what will be included in it is briefly listed below.

•More balanced AI rubber-banding.
•New paint editor features:
•Mirroring.
•Improved color selection.
•Morohoshi-san’s Diablo and Ken Block’s Hoonicorn.
•They can be obtained after completing the corresponding storylines.
•First look at neon.
•One of the earlier versions of Morohoshi-san’s Diablo.
•Reputation increase — from 50 to 60.
•3 times more awards and achievements.
•New daily challenges.
•30 new wraps.
•General bug fixes, minor issues, and other improvements.

This is just the beginning, and we can’t wait to see what innovations will come to Need for Speed in the future.