Need for Speed Rivals is a racing game and features gameplay similar to earlier Need for Speed titles, such as Criterion's Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.[2] Players take on the role of a Racer or Cop, with each side of the law offering its own play style.[3]Rivals features eleven upgradeable gadgets such as EMPs, shockwaves, spike strips, and the ability to call in roadblocks.[2] The game takes place in a fictional location known as Redview County.[4] The open worldenvironment features a similar set-up to Most Wanted, with several jumps, speed traps, and unlockable cars, as well as shortcuts that are not shown on the map.[5][6]
Rivals features a career progression system for both Cop and Racer.[7] Progression is made by means of Speedlists for Racer and Assignments for Cop, which are sets of objectives which involve dangerous driving, maneuvers, and race standings. Upon completion of each set of objectives, the player levels up and unlocks new content, and is presented with another set of objectives to choose from.[8]
The Autolog system, a competition-between-friends system, developed by Criterion for Hot Pursuit, records the player's completion time for each event, Speedlist or Assignment. These times are posted to Speed Walls for local and global leaderboards to be compared to other players' times.[8]
Rivals features a new social system called the AllDrive, which allows players to transition from playing alone, to playing with friends, described as "destroying the line between single player and multiplayer". This allows players to engage in co-op gameplay as well as play against each other.[3] The game also features a dynamic weather system, which makes "the world feel alive in a much bigger sense than any other Need for Speed game".[2]
Rivals also takes on some gameplay features of earlier Underground titles in the franchise with cues on aesthetic vehicle personalization, such as paint jobs, decals, rims and license plates and liveries can be modified, as well as vehicle performance, and various 'Pursuit Tech' gadgets.[5][9] With the exception for the Aston Martin Vanquish (and most DLC cars), all cars in the game are only available in either the racer or police variant.
