Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is a 2010 racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, with separate versions developed by Exient Entertainment for the Wii and by Firemint for iOS, Android, webOS, and Windows Phone. Hot Pursuit is the sixteenth Need for Speed title and was released first in November 2010, and digitally in December. It serves as both a reboot of the series and a revival of the Hot Pursuit name last used in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002).

Hot Pursuit is set in the fictional Seacrest County, which is based on the American states of California, Oregon and Washington, in which players can compete in several types of races. Players can compete online, which includes additional game modes such as "Interceptor", "Race", and the titular "Hot Pursuit". The game features a new social interaction system called "Autolog", which is a network that connects friends for head-to-head races and compares player statistics for competition. The game also features paid downloadable content in the form of new vehicles, events, and achievements.

Hot Pursuit was first revealed at E3 in July 2010, and released on 16 November of that year. Hot Pursuit was well received by critics and was the recipient of numerous accolades: it was awarded with "Best Racing Game" from the 2010 Game Critics Awards, and also won several similar awards at other outlets, including Best Driving Game at the Spike 2010 Video Game Awards and a BAFTA Award for its Autolog multiplayer component.

A direct successor to Hot Pursuit, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, was released on 30 October 2012. A remastered version, titled Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered, was released on 6 November 2020 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on 13 November 2020 for Nintendo Switch.

Gameplay

PS3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows

Hot Pursuit returns to the gameplay of earlier Need for Speed titles, mainly Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998), and prominently featuring supercars and high-speed police chases. It features two factions, "Racer" and "Cop", and a full career mode for both roles. Police are more powerful and race faster, with each side having access to several power-ups, including calling for roadblocks and radar jamming. Hot Pursuit's physics are positioned between the arcade-styled approach of Burnout Paradise (2008) and sim racing games such as Need for Speed: Shift (2009).

Hot Pursuit takes place in the fictional Seacrest County based on the West Coast of the Western United States. It is an open world and features over of open road, four times larger than that of Burnout Paradise, Criterion's previous title. Hot Pursuit features a new social interaction system called "Autolog" which is described as "Facebook for the game". The game features both single-player and multiplayer game modes with up to eight players; as an option to live multiplayer racing, players can post records and achievements on the Autolog feed for friends to see, which they then can try to beat. Autolog also contains an experience system called "Bounty" which is used to unlock new vehicles.

All vehicles in Hot Pursuit are licensed real-world cars, with most available in both racer and police variants, but a few cars are exclusive to each side. The Porsche 918 Spyder, then a concept car, debuts in Hot Pursuit. Ferrari vehicles however, last seen in downloadable content for Need for Speed: Shift and absent from all other entries since Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002), are also absent from Hot Pursuit. There is no car customization or tuning, other than color changing. Unlike previous Need for Speed games which use unbranded, fictional models, real cars like the Audi A4, Chevrolet Cobalt, Porsche Cayenne, Nissan Frontier, and Ram 1500 are used as traffic cars.

Wii The Wii version of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit has very little in common with versions on other platforms. This version was designed by a different company (Exient Entertainment), and was a completely different game in nearly every virtual aspect: graphics, soundtrack, racing modes, gameplay, and customization. Some reviewers cited that the Wii version showed stark similarities to a previous Need for Speed installment, Nitro."Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Review" , computerandvideogames.com, 13 December 2010, accessed 24 April 2010. This version takes place in four real-life cities across the world, as opposed to the fictional Seacrest County in the other versions. The four cities, each set in a different time of day — Chongqing, China, set in the morning; Dubai, UAE, set in the afternoon; Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, set in the early evening; and Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, which is set in the late evening.

In Career mode, there are 4 super-tournaments (each city) and a Grand Prix Tournament. Each super-tournament consists of four smaller tournaments, which consist of Hot Pursuit (circuit race with cops), Eliminator (knockout), Time Marker (solo timed circuit run) and Rush Hour (100 to 1) races. Each super tournament concludes with a Boss Race, which is a free roam race (with GPS) to capture more of the checkpoint flags than the Boss (2 out of 3, etc.). Besides Career, the game offers Quick Race mode, which allows up to four players on split screens, each with their own map, and the four race types from Career plus a fifth, "Interceptor" (be a cop & bust a speeder).

The cars, purchased with Bounty, improve in speed, acceleration, and strength (D, C, B, A, and S Class cars, plus police vehicles in the Quick Race's "Interceptor" race). Racers do not have names, just the Career/Profile names. During the race, players can accumulate and use regular nitro and super nitro (more powerful but shorter), similar to Need for Speed: Nitro. Power-ups/"Supes" are acquired while driving: Boost (extra nitro), Drain (others' nitro), Cruise Control (brief auto-steering), Deflect The Heat (send police after opponents), Jammer (invisibility to police), Tank (resistance to crash damage), Soundwave (circular explosion), and Repair (immediate car restoration). Repair is the most important, as players' car must be in a good condition to accumulate Nitro and be immune from being busted by the cops.

A complex yet extensive range of visual customization options is available, including body kits, wheels, and a full range of colors & vinyls, including freehand drawing ability. The most obvious difference is that the graphics and racing physics in this version are completely different from the other versions, giving it a retro look and feel reminiscent of much older pre-GameCube or Mario Kart type games.

Development Development of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit began in 2008. It was first hinted at during E3 2009 by EA's CEO, John Riccitiello. Riccitiello stated that Criterion Games, developers of EA's own Burnout series, was working on a "revolutionary" addition to the Need for Speed franchise, stating: "We don't have a plan right now for a separate major launch on Burnout, because the team doing it is working on a revolutionary take on Need for Speed." The title was confirmed to be in development by EA's chief operating officer, John Pleasants, at a Stock meeting in June 2009, where he stated: "We've taken the Burnout team and combined it with our Need for Speed franchise. So we now have that in our favor because that Burnout team is probably one of the more online-centric and notably high-quality game developers that we have out at Criterion." Shift producer, Jesse Abney, expressed his delight to work with Criterion Games, stating that it would be a "great team to work with on that stuff," referencing the development of Need for Speed. It was reported that the game was scheduled for release in Q4 2010. EA's COO, John Schappert, said that the Q4 NFS title was, "a new action based Need for Speed from our Criterion Studio," in a post-financial report conference call. The title was officially revealed as Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit at EA's Media Briefing during E3 2010, with a trailer which showed a high-speed police chase involving three different racers. The trailer was followed by a live demo of the game on stage between creative director Craig Sullivan as a cop and producer Matt Webster as a racer.

In August 2010, before Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was set to be shown at EA's press conference during Gamescom, it was announced by art director Henry LaBounta that Criterion collaborated with Battlefield creators EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) in building the expansive open world of Hot Pursuit. Early in November 2010, Patrick Söderlund, Senior Vice President of EA Games Europe, said this of the collaboration: "I think the most important thing, when you have two high-quality developers working together, for it to work, they need to have mutual respect. They need to have that respect, to say 'OK, we trust you to do this.' This was a case where that was so obvious, where the Criterion team had a full trust in the DICE team to do what they were doing, and vice versa."

Recent games in the Need for Speed franchise included a story, but Matt Webster, producer of Hot Pursuit, said: "We didn't really think it was necessary to include a story. If you're a cop, the aim is to go up the ranks, while a racer's aim is to get to the highest rank they can." EA stated that the combination of acclaimed developer Criterion Games, a socially-focused online mode and official car licences makes the franchise more accessible than before. UK product manager for Need for Speed Kevin Flynn said: "This is definitely the best Need for Speed I've seen to date. I thought Shift was a great game but different and a bit serious, while Hot Pursuit is more fun and accessible."

In regard to the game's title being shared with Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, creative director Craig Sullivan stated: "To be honest when we started out making the game we didn't know it was going to be called Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, we just didn't. We got to the game before we got to the name. We realized we were making something that had a lot of cops in it and was really interesting to us, so we thought what can we call this? Eventually we thought this actually fits quite well with Hot Pursuit and went with it."

Soundtrack Hot Pursuit features 7.1 channel surround sound in PCM (Dolby Digital and DTS are also available). The soundtrack of Hot Pursuit features a general track list as is seen in EA Black Box Need for Speed games such as Most Wanted, Carbon and Undercover rather than a scored soundtrack as seen in ProStreet and Shift. The song "Edge of the Earth" by Thirty Seconds to Mars serves as the game's theme song; other songs in the game's soundtrack include "Big Weekend" by Lemonade, "Cinema" by Benny Benassi (feat. Gary Go), "Opposite of Adults" by Chiddy Bang, "Sofi Needs a Ladder" by Deadmau5, "Watercolour" by Pendulum and "Born Free" by M.I.A.. Hot Pursuit also contains an original score composed by Marios Takoushis and Vanesa Lorena Tate, which is usually played during police pursuit events.

Players can also add custom soundtracks to the game, so that any music stored on the player's hard drive can be selected during gameplay, as long as they are added to a playlist via the console's system menu. As well as optionally using songs from the player's hard drive, several categories of licensed music are available for the game's racing, menu screens, and the photo mode.

Updates and expansions