Need for Speed challenges players to become racing icons

Electronic Arts showed off the customization and story of its reboot of Need for Speed, the racing title coming this fall.

EA opened its press event at Gamescom 2015 in Cologne, Germany, with a discussion of how you can customize cars, create your own adventure, and impress other racing icons with your designs or outlaw behavior.

The game is being made by EA’s Ghost Games studio in Gothenburg, Sweden, and it debuts on November 3 in North America and November 5 in the rest of the world on the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. EA said it will let fans create their own versions of cars in a contest. The winner will have their car actually built and shown off at a trade show in Las Vegas.

Inspired by films such as Fast and Furious, the game features icons who specialize in creating awesome cars. Those live-action icons are actors who show off various aspects of car culture. Magnus Walker, for instance, restores classic Porsche 911s and stands for speed. Ken Block is notorious for aggressive driving and style. Nakai-san is a builder who tunes and customizes cars. The Crew icon, dubbed Risky Devil, drive around in packs. And Morohoshi-san is an outlaw who does as he pleases.

All of them are aimed at giving you different options to play. With each new achievement, you can impress the icon of your choice and rise up the ladder.

“Find out if you can become an icon this November,” said Marcus Nilsson, executive producer of the game, in the presentation at Gamescom.

 

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.