Are We WRONG About Need for Speed Payback? 

Hate to admit it but true, I’d always be grinding for the best parts in payback just to have even more speed and acceleration. And people are saying they were locked behind a slot machine to progress through the game? Nah you could beat it with some of the worst parts Oh and it also made me feel a lil more attached to the cars I had, since I’d be playing with them constantly and never rlly had to switch to a different car. I’d often grind the money to buy a certain car, then whenever I’d unlock it, I went straight into the shop to upgrade it to finish the rest of the events and finish the game F off-road events tho, hate those…

NFS Payback is UNDERRATED

I'll give this to payback: the heists have the absolute best in-game cinematics ive ever seen in a racing game

The separation of the garages in Unbound is what killed the game for me. I built some really good cars. No way I was gonna grind 100+ more hours to get them back

NFS payback was hella underated tbh, Driving at the night was a different vibe tbh! And one of the last nfs with a good sound track too! And the cars in the garage look so good!

Knowing that someone in the nfs dev team will probably see this makes me happy

Cancelled some DLCs, cancelled Toyotas, unfinished story, but there is Aki Kimura in PB.

hot take, nfs payback is the most underrated recent nfs game. i love it, yes it has problems but its fun in my opinion and i like the class system and upgrade system. Loved the map and the derelicts.

I still play it till this day, yeah it had problems but i still loved it

Im willing to die on this hill: Payback was fun despite it having multiple problems. It should have never had those stupid cards for upgrades. I get the Vegas theme but the gambling for parts should've been left out. And the characters were a bit annoying. But, the online was very fun to be honest. and the drifting was handled better than all the other Ghost games because of just how smooth and fast it was. I really did enjoy how they didnt try to do either grip or drift with it, it was fully arcade drift handling and it was very fun and I'm still not sure why everyone has a problem with NFS having actual arcade drift handling like actual arcade machines

Payback we always one of my favorite games. But it does have alot of problems with online mode, for example people will try to ram you every time you try to drag at the air strip.

People can hate this all they want, but in my personal opinion payback is very severely underrated. Yes the upgrading system shouldn’t be the way it is, and there aren’t any free roam cops, but the way the game feels and the way the cars feel when you’re going fast I think feels better than unbound and maybe heat.

*No. Among all the "modern" Need For Speed it is definitely the worst. Progression shold NEVER be locked behind a literal slot machine.*

I remember the challenges with Matty C😂😂😂😂

This is where I still prefer Heat, the high heat races that give you better parts. I'm on the fence between letting us just unlock the part for all cars and grinding them to earn the part each and every time. What i do think payback did good was adding the additional perks of acceleration vs top speed or having both and so on and so forth.

Drag racing on the runway in online was peak

*in payback, you take corners in circles, not in squares.* this is a saying that gets thrown around a lot in the payback crew i run - controversial (i think) opinion: the powersliding handling model of payback is more fun than the "realistic" model of unbound, and i think thats the underlying reason for why its more fun just driving around. Also, nowadays its standard practice to use mods to max out your car to its legal limits, max performance is kind of a given so it actually comes down to the driving skills, also due to the game (with the exception of the regera on highways) being acceptably balanced in its cars

I would be 100% satisfied with a modern need for speed if heat's story was as long as payback's and had unbound's car list.

Payback and heat have so much better handling than unbound

The one thing the speedcard system did right was make upgrades marginal and frequent and after every race your car would get a little bit faster. Compared to unbound where you max out your car early in the week and drive the same car for the rest of the days.

What I liked the Most was this minimal delay when using NOS. That Little delay with the Sound before the nos kicks in was great

I still remember the lead up to Payback and Theo getting to cover the game at E3 before the gameplay streams at the end of 2017. I feel so much nostalgia for that time that no other NFS since has managed to match

Tbh, the only problem I have with payback is the performance customization, other than that I thinks it’s a great game

Well looks like i fucked myself over. I’m not gonna say on god since i’d be lying but back in 2020 i could’ve sworn everyone was saying Payback is the best need for speed now out of nowhere it’s apparently the worst. Well i bought the game just a few days ago since i was always a forza guy and i can’t lie i’ve been having a really good time with the progression. I just also have to be honest there are things i dislike about it and if anyone wants to hear what the new guy has to say please stay and read. First is about the offroad cars (not gonna lie this is more of a personal opinion) I f-ing hate how driving offroad works. I hate when i’m done with a turn and then straighten my car and it goes (fuck you mean straight i’m trynna be a drift car) then I lose control and hit a wall and out of nowhere I find myself in last place and my controller gets the chance to meet it’s maker (lowkey a skill issue for me to be honest). I don’t like the runner missions, not in general but those where you have to get to a certain point and stay there till it gets checked or however i should explain it. Just extremely boring in my opinion. I also definitely don’t like the (once again in my opinion) how little cars there are, they just took favorites off of a few brands and called it a day. Also a love hate thing with the unlocking cars after specific parts of the game. A honorable mention is drifting. I can’t believe I’m saying this but i swear i see no difference between drifting a drifter and a racer. Map needs a good straight for topping cars aswell. I don’t believe anyone will read this but if you did i also would like to know what y’all think. Overall i’d give 7.5/10 I like it but it’s just those small things that make a huge difference

Biggest thing I miss about payback which is very minor but I absolutely loved it’s how the dirt would fly when you would drive through it, it looked beautiful in off-road racing but heat and unbound got rid of it and now it’s not that fun to drive through dirt bc the visuals just look stale

The drift handling was light years better than heat or unbound

I know its a hot take, this game is one of 2 resons why i love cars, i have a weird liking to it and i dont think it really deserves all the hate

Honestly, I had more fun playing Need For Speed Payback and actually unlocking every single achievment then playing Need For Speed UNBOND. Plus I also prefer the drift handling in Payback. The UNBOND drift handling is trash.

There's a very funny and awkward moment in the game which is not related to the story but when you start the league Silver SIX gallo and Tyler are high school friends and after the long time no see during the race gallo tries to refresh tylers old memories how they both crashed a 65 mustang during high school and Tyler was blamed for it now this part is over for now😂. Now comes they funny part i was searching for delericts parts with MAC driving and tyler calls mac he questions out of no where that did he find his uncles 65 mustang and mac says im on it and tyler says good luck 😂😂😂. Man they worked on this game super hard idk why people keep hating.

Totally agree about the driving in Payback. It felt really good. Huge upgrade from 2015. Again, I don't love the upgrade system, the characters were weirdly written and voice acted, and honestly the map felt too bland to me, mostly visually. (Guys I'm tired of deserts) But man the driving is nice and snappy, it doesn't feel eerily similar to ocarina of time block pushing puzzles, and the drifting is so good feeling compared to every other (new) NFS game in the last decade. Sure, I don't like that it was faster than grip. But when they made it slower in NFS Heat, they made it so slow that it just didn't feel good at all. I think it felt better in NFS Unbound, but I find it lacked good drift events. And it STILL didn't feel as good as Payback. I guess the solution would be to made drift cars have the same handling, but when grip cars drift, they slow down a bit more. Not as much as in Heat, but maybe a pinch faster than Unbound. Or... honestly I think grip handling could have been tweaked. When you're grip turning on a wide sweeping corner, you seem to lose speed and don't accelerate much. I think grip handling should also have made it so that you can accelerate more easily and lose less speed when gripping around a corner. Look at Forza. Drifting is slower, but it doesn't feel like crap. I think they had the idea of slowing down drift, rather than slowing down drift AND speeding up grip. As for the upgrade system, I still prefer buying parts, but this was one of my favourite interpretations of the loot based upgrade system. Being able to buy high end parts, but also having the additional perks that ACTUALLY affected how your car behaved rather than 2.87% better braking. I was never on the bandwagon hatred of the game. 60 hours flew by when I played it. That means something.

Payback is overhated. That's just it.

Payback and other games at that time (not including heat) all had unique things do it that made it more arcade like. Now need for speed games are all trying to be more realistic than the last one. the player base is always complaining to the developers to remove things from the new games that alter the gameplay from the previous title. And then have the audacity to say their always making the same game with a different name. Or saying the game has “wasted potential.” All I’m saying is maybe if we let the developers creativity run wild, we would have better nfs games. 🤷

Payback overall was one of the best. It just had a poor performance upgrading system. But that was easy to work around if you knew what to do

Funnily enough i have most hours in payback. Unbound is catching up tho. I genuinely think unbound multiplayer is really fun, especially link-ups

I like nfs payback because it's like midnight club la the day changes to night and day by it's self

The thing I never understood about what EA, ghost, and even criterion were doing was GETTING RID OF CERTAIN EVENTS. Like payback gave us drag racing back, they took it away in Heat. Why? 😑 they still had drifting in heat but then took that away in unbound. Why? 😑 They gave us back the “speed cross” events of which NO ONE was asking for in unbound but renamed them as “street takeovers”. Like really? People were asking for drag racing to come back for the next game after heat but they didn’t listen. No instead they did the opposite and scrapped drifting which was one of the more popular events of the franchise and replaced that too with “street takeovers” all because of the intersection take over BS that legit no one actually cared for at all and quite possibly is the most hated thing going on on in the “street scene” right now. Why replace two of the most popular events with an event hated by legit everyone even though people are begging you to bring them back? 🤦‍♂️ I never played unbound because they got rid of drifting. I almost never played heat because they got rid of drag racing. The only reason I played heat was because of the cops and even that was annoying due to the fact they shoved health bars on the cars like really? 😑 If you’re trying to bring back the nostalgia of Mostwanted 2005 then let us HAVE THAT FUN without having to worry so damn much about the vehicles health bar. Hell mostwanted 2005 has smarter AI cops then heat ever did. In heat they just ram the living piss out of you rather then try to box you in like in mostwanted 2005. Like if this is the best EA can do for the franchise then it’s already dead. Reasons I never bought unbound, because I’m tired of them not listening and taking things people enjoyed in the previous games away. 🤦‍♂️

Payback is hella underrated, im starting to slowly feel nostalgia for it.. jeez this game is getting old

Bros out here acting like he didn't cause this game to go this direction "i like the co-operative direction its taking screw races and progression lets do linkups" and then complains that the game is stale after man pushed for the second coming of 2012

Payback is my favourite Ghost Games NFS title and will be like that forever

*Theo, 2015 had preformance upgrades you had to LEVEL UP for. Just like in your precious Black Box games.*

i loved payback's story the most. screw marvel's cheap humorous writing style. worst thing happened to video game story writing. games don't take themselves seriously anymore.

It seems to me that dividing the cars into classes like in NFS Payback would be a good move because they would have more room to show off when it comes to second control (drift). In Payback, unfortunately, they did something a bit like they used to do in GTA Online, except that in NFS they slightly modified the racing driving model, and in GTA they added tires with low grip, "supposedly drifting, but what kind of drift is it?" But in the last update (GTA) they added a completely new one. driving model (drift) and it turned out to be good. If in the new NFS (or try to save Unbound) they did something similar, that when you buy a car for a race it has a racing driving model, and when you buy a car in the drift class you get a car with completely different handling, for example with the UNITE mod or something similar (I don't mean the guidance from Forza because NFS would lose the atmosphere and dynamics of 200+mph in a corner), it seems to me that there could be something to it (if I remember correctly, in older NFS there were different guidance, in it was different in normal driving and racing, and in drifts it was different) if Rockstar could add it in one update, I guess they can do it too (I find it hard to believe that with one slider you can change the lead by 180 degrees and for it to be good)

Sorry mate but I couldn't disagree more 😂

Plus this game has probably the best racing layouts in nfs and as much as I hate off road racing the layouts were amazing

I love the weather in payback than any of the nfs game

i cant believe there are people actually defending speedcards

My opinion : 1.HEAT 2.PAYBACk 3.2015 4.UNBOUND Newest nfs have good graphics ONLY, other than that is a big piece of crap, I was always a nfs fan, but even if unbound would be free, I wouldn't take it, because in my eyes, is not even worth to try to play it

Hell yeah shit damn near better than Unbound😂 the Speedlist held this game Down Imo The Story was more exciting for me and the Multiplayer was Fun AF from having Ranked And Causal Speedlist

I'm watching your whole playlist of NFS-Payback, from when you first started playing it. Bro, you couldn't stop praising it and saying it was the best NFS game in a while, and that the handling was the best yet, and that the upgrade system was different but interesting and maybe better in some ways. Don't believe me? Watch that playlist. What changed? Heat? It was better than 2015 for sure, but definitely not better than Payback. Unbound? Nah, you belong in an asylum if you think Unbound is better than Payback or that it's different from Heat in any way.

4:00 payback is good in drifting I said that in past posts too

It's true that the drifting in Payback is the most enjoyable. I don't know about console fellas but, the grinding and slot machine thingy doesn't bother me at all when I can just install some money mods via FMM, or just simply use Cheat Engine.

Personally I think NFS Payback was the last NFS game to have good and enjoyable music in general. When loading up Heat (no I didn't buy Unbound) I always just put on some spotify in the background.

Playing heat and unbound, heat obviously had been killed early the story was good and it had potential for story dlc in the future before EA said no to that. Unbound story felt as short as heat did which is kinda sad and the whole concept of the story was unsatisfying. Payback may have had some bad voice acting and stuff but having the lengthy story it had and having to face off differently race groups from a span of low tier racing groups to the high tier ones and the stuff in between like stealing the gold plated cars or stealing the regera was a great experience, what I’m trying to get at is I miss the racing games with a longer story to enjoy , as well as cars we can no longer get such as the ford model T and the Kustoms F132

YES. NFS payback!!! You hate to say it but you aren’t wrong. I love the action and all don’t get me wrong but I feel like, after playing other nfs games payback just dosent give me the vibes as NFS if you know what I mean

Nice let’s be apologetic to a game that had no popo n forced you to upgrade you car with cards??? Y’all really liked the escort missions too? The packages that initiated police “chases” Game had some good things going for it but dawg. The game missed the mark.

Honestly what I thought it loved being able to build and “tune” any car into anyway I liked I think I just hate in unbound, I get the drifting nerf they added in this game so people can’t just easily cheese races but I find it hella annoying when trying to build a drift car and it becomes a grip car or a car that just throws its back end out whenever it gets the chance I hope in the underground update they retune the chassis to make them more stable & exciting to drift in I also despise the car progression system in this game, atleast the one in multiplayer..I liked NFS Payback & Heat’s car progression system, ik its was blantant & easy and the new one gives you things to do after the you complete story mode but someone of them are just straight very grindy & repatitive.. take down 40 players during a race isn’t as much of easy feat as it sounds esspecially if you are use to clean racing Tho im not against locking Legendary Custom or Custom vehicles behind those types of challenges, as it does feel proper to have those vehicles locked behind high diffcuit stakes Ik that some people would just say “just get good”& I’d love too if I wasn’t so busy with life

I like Payback, but I just think the open world is completely dead. If the open world had cops and actual other cars driving it would be so much better. It also could of even just been completely linear and I would of liked it more.

A game shouldn’t be inflated for content and grind just for wasting the players time. A game should instead give reasons for the players to come back, like fun events, events you can play with your friends, like what criterion is doing with Unbound. They should also listen to the player base, just like criterion are doing.

To me personally nfs payback is an awesome game and nothing worng with it and a modders fixed this game named unite mod wich changes everthing from that slot machine you guys yapping about no longer anymore with this mod this mod unite make any level of speed card with best stats available from the start and also gives you free unlocked ctach up packs and much more and this mod fixed drift physics and fixed the game graphics and make it a lot more better and removd film grade effects and bloom and during the night its make it like nfs 2015 and lot more darker in the city and deserts thats why im still playing this game with unite mod also unite mod is also available for nfs heat and 2015 and for the love of god dont do bad review about payback also this game has the longest story mode every in the franchise since mw 2005 and payback story is amazing and fun also i played nfs payback without mod unite mod to and tuner shop cool down was 7 minutes not 20 minutes just do a random race and it gets re stocked soon as possible in the latetest updates ofc this game people says has bad offroad physics too as well and i got a fix solution just install unite mod and done

i loved payback as it was my only recent nfs game besides maybe you could say the run but the drift event was so fun to grind out for cards and yes i absolutely agree upgrading your car by luck is ridiculous, but if they added it like a little feature after each endgame car you can maybe get just a little bit more top speed or acceleration for endleasly grinding, itd definitely give a good progression feel

Tbh people were a bit harsh on this game first of all you it wasn’t unfair micro transactions because you didn’t need to buy them for upgrades people like ign Only knows 5% of the consumer

I will always say this, Payback was a complete unnecessary game. 2015 should've had a year two and even a year three expansion rather than waste the development on Payback. I agree with everyone that said parts were hidden behind a slot machine, and the online part of the game was just trash.

The worst thing about need for speed payback was drag racing and why did they made drag racing to shift up every 3 times and by forza horizon 5 drag racing is better than payback

straight facts spoken. thos cards in payback.. whyyy? ... lol... problems with unbound, 1. No parts inventory (lotta wasted cash) 2. those heat levels, first hour in the game all i say was heat 4&5 (also still had random police spawns that arent visible on the map when tryna hide) ... and also whyy do i gotta keep back by cars to a specific rank to participate in races.. i didnt really like that part of it

been playing this and then jumped to the newer one and god, payback plays so much better

I still play Payback. To this day. Almost every day. No joke. It's my favorite NFS game ever. My favorite racing game ever. And my favorite console game ever. No lie. I'm probably the biggest fan of Payback. Nothing is wrong with it. Everything about the game is good. I love the voice acting, the story, the progression, the upgrade system, the Slot Machine, the Speed Cards, the micro transactions, the side bets, the handling, the offroading, the different car types, the visuals... and so on. Everything people hate about it, I love. Everything people love about it, I love MORE. I'm sorry, but I've not played any other NFS games besides Rivals, 2015, Payback, and Heat. I know I've missed out on a lot of classics. But from those games I've played... Payback. All day, every day. What I need to do is get PS+ again and find people that actually still play the game. But even if I can't, I still play the game. I even gone through the whole game 2 whole times. Or is it 3 now? 🤔

Payback and 2012 are the most hated NFS’s for the wrong reasons only. Unbound makes people appreciate just how great past NFSs truly was, especially the pats ones

Reminder: BlackPanthaa was in NFS: Payback promotional video (that one with driftin' McLaren)

One thing that piss me of from unbound is the library, is now separated from single player and multiplayer When you buy the same car and apply the livery (or color) you are wasting 2 slots from the same car for no reason and i what if i wanted to make more i can't i have to delete a duplicate slot Every time i want to play online i have to remove the liverys from non duplicated slots

honestly i'd put payback behind heat as my fav NFS game

The modern NFS games use the same formula but still can’t seem to perfect that action racer feel

i really enjoyed payback tbh one of the only nfs games i grinded out

You can modify any car that you have into drift mode or more grippy normal mode, by upgrading to better differential lock and then go to handling settings while driving and slide the option to drift.

YES FINALLY Payback was my favourite game of the 4, payback1 then nfs2015 2 then heat 3. i missed the speedlists and I loved the speedcards and desire for expensive hypercars in payback, it sold the theme. I loved the derelicts (although I wish I had more to choose from)

Aside from the shipments, I quite enjoyed the way they setup the classes and upgrade system in Payback. I remember feeling like I wanted to grind for that slight edge of parts. If the presentation had felt more diegetic, a lot more people would have been more receptive of it

I watched the playthrough videos recently , I still think that the game was pretty good (apart from those speed cards)

Love Payback. Grind races all the time.

to be honest, the level you played in this video with Payback degrades the game. You have to learn to play, just join a Speedlist and you will easily see that you will get 1500 meters when you think you are playing well. this will bring the greatest motivation and learning. I've been playing the game for 5 years and it still manages to surprise me or show me something new. Anyone who says this is not the best nfs is ignorant and he doesn't know how to build a car and how to drive it! If you want to have a really good competition and learn, I will gladly help you. Speedlist forever!.🏎️💨

Me personally, I love need for speed payback, but I agree with a lot of the other people in the comment section that our progression should not be locked behind gambling, because the whole point of playing a car game where you start out from nothing and you work your way up to being the top that shouldn’t involve loot boxes or endgame currency or anything like that. It should just be you your car and the money you make from racing not your car and your credit card

I get nostalgic every time I fire the game back up

Do you offer that rug on your head in your merch shop?

i loved this game, every nfs game since then has sucked for me.. i hated heat, couldn’t play more than an hour.. the newest one is just boring and slow.. i liked this one the most. i really really enjoyed it.

Payback for payback 2026?

This reminds me of the time where you used to play need for speed payback ngl

i enjoyed payback

This game is something i still love to play and watch...i think it has aged quite well personally anyway

I loved NFS Payback when i played it (i played it after nfs heat came out) and it felt just good and have a grinding system that make sense and rewarded you every time you raced and not something so plain and simple as paying to upgrade your garage to have everything unlocked, and when i checked the game ratings and most people dislike the game, it got me confused bc it was so much more enjoyable than others nfs in my opinion, and its one of the games that got me hooked on drifting 10 times more than any race game i played before, I still think the game is very underrated.

At least EA confirmed that the Payback and Heat will be playable offline They backtracked this after NFS 2015

3:08 I remember taking turns at this event with my little brother we'd take the different cars we built and compete on drift courses *we were sweaty as all hell I'd always pick the less competitive car even after he got good 😂 now that was a load of fun*

I enjoyed what i played of payback, it was just quite uhhh, forgettable? I honestly forgot about it for a while until now

1:24 that corner when driving at high speeds made me quit this game 💀

Midnightclub still cancelled soz

I think the feature from Payback called 'bait crate' should be adding to Unbound. That giving $50,000 (day) and $25,000 (night)

Since when did you get a lisp?

Am I the only one that genuinely enjoys nfs payback more than any nfs cuz it’s the first nfs that I’ve ever played. Now I’ve changed to unbound but I miss payback. But am I the only one that likes payback?

I had avoided Payback because of the reviews; got it recently on sale. I shouldn't listen to reviews; I really like it. I actually like the 'Diablo' style upgrades, it makes a nice change. Not every game needs to follow the same blueprint, and Payback feels different to the cookie builds of arcade racers recently

U gotta experience the Dragsters in NFS PAYBACK and battle online with other players!!!!

the thing were u talked about how nfs payback requires gridning for parts is honestly one of my favorite part of the game un like forza where in a couple hours of gameplay you can make your car go 200mph with a little amount of money

NFS UNBOUND should have been a mobile game... heck everything about it screams MOBILE from the aesthetic to the smoothness of gameplay.... UNBOUND looks like a PC adapted version of a mobile game

1:40 bro 5M dollars in UNBOUND. How the HELL you made that amount?????. Im STILL stuck trying to achieve 1.2M in HEAT😂😂😂😂