Senior features editor Doug Cott steers his Porsche 911 into a corner and eases off the throttle. As the 911 starts to turn, the rear-engine performance icon experiences the kind of oversteer that’s so endemic to the car, and the rear flips up. Twenty-five years later, he still remembers how amazing the moment was.

Cott wasn’t on the track. He was in his Newport Beach office, playing a beta version of Need for Speed, a game that would later become Road & Track Presents. And for the first time in his life, he saw a digital car rendered on the state-of-the-art 3DO game console behave in the same way as a real-world vehicle. The fact that

Cott tested it was no coincidence. The market was flooded with simplistic racing games, half-baked offerings that paid little attention to how real cars behave. Need for Speed ​​producer Hanno Lemke wanted to create a racing game that would immerse players in the perfect drive, allowing them to understand what the best street cars are actually capable of and how they are.

“We wanted players to smell the leather, hear the shift gate, and experience the distinctive engine sound,” Lemke said. “We need to make it feel like the player has the keys to that car for a day.”

To achieve this level of authenticity, a lot of performance data, detailed driving impressions of the cars themselves, and a lot of feedback on the virtual cars developed for the game. So Lemke and his team at game studio Electronic Arts turned to Road & Track, hoping to use the magazine’s name to give credibility to the nascent series and allow the staff to make fine adjustments to the game.

Road & Track sent EA photos, test data, and detailed driving impressions of cars such as the Porsche 911 and Lamborghini Diablo. Editors had to invest minimal time in the beta version of the game. EA used the feedback to give the digital cars different personalities and characteristics that set them apart from their metal and leather counterparts.

games expanded beyond just road and track. After a well-received release on the niche platform 3DO, Need for Speed ​​was ported to MS-DOS, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Microsoft Windows. Sequels included blockbusters like Need for Speed ​​III: Hot Pursuit, Need for Speed: Underground, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. And while Road & Track’s relationship ended after the original game, the missions and settings of the two brands continued along the same lines.

“Our goal with each iteration has been to give players a different story, a different experience, while still maintaining the core principles of the series, which are real cars, car culture, passion for cars… It’s not just about who’s fastest on the track, it’s about the experience,” said Lemke, who oversaw the series until ProStreet 2007.

This willingness to change is what defines the game series. Their reach extends to car culture, whatever its form. Initially, NFS focused primarily on supercars and road driving, taking players behind the wheel of a Ferrari or Lamborghini along incredible coastal roads. But as the audience got younger and supercars became increasingly out of reach, Lemke wanted to meet fans where they were. A pop culture boom of tuned and modified cars gave birth to a rebellious counterculture of wild driving, sideshows and risqué music.

The 2003 version of Need for Speed: Underground jumped on this theme, emphasizing night-time races with full-fuel Civics, tuned S2000s and tuned Integras. There were deliberately no super sports cars or real race tracks. The game revolved around regular roads, Dodge Neons and Ford Focuses.

Need For Speed ​​was not content to give players access to supercars, it wanted to prove that the car you already own could be the hero. It was a declaration that the love of cars doesn’t require six-figure investments or private racetracks. All that was needed was a willing driver and a place where he could drive quickly and without consequences.

It was well received. The release of Underground transformed Need for Speed ​​from a hobbyist game into a cultural phenomenon. Approximately 7 million copies were sold in the game’s first six months, eventually reaching total sales of 15 million copies. It became one of the best-selling games for the PlayStation 2 and set the series on a path to becoming one of the most successful franchises of all time. This single title accounted for nearly 10% of the entire sales of the 24-game Need For Speed ​​series, and is considered the first truly culture-defining hit in the street racing genre. Underground focuses on customization, refinement and increased accessibility that have become hallmarks of the series.

“In our mindset today, Need for Speed ​​is self-expression, a little more nuanced than usual: ‘Either this vehicle is a dream and it says something about me, or my connection to this vehicle says something about me,’” says Matt Webster, vice president and general manager of Criterion Games, who oversees the game and development of the new NFS title. “Because it’s weird to imagine that this collection of bits of technology has a soul, but we talk about it all the time, and it’s because I think there’s a strange relationship between humans and cars, a very personal relationship. The game reflects that.”

Every aspect of the series is designed to build and maintain that connection. An expressive soundtrack, including new music, became an integral part of the series. EA did away with the background music that characterizes games like Forza and Gran Turismo, instead using music you would actually hear while driving. Hip-hop, hard rock and metal tracks by real artists brought the world to life, and EA even hired big-name artists like Jamiroquai to promote the game. Music wasn’t an afterthought, it was a central part of the experience.

Cars shouldn’t just be commodities. The team fought hard to avoid the paradox of choice, where overwhelming choices make any decision unsatisfying. They deliberately and ruthlessly pared down each game’s car list to avoid Forza menu-like bloat with 700 cars. In such a crowded field, machines start to seem interchangeable and expendable. Variety remained its key: the game needed dozens of cars to cover tuner options, supercars, sleepers, and classics. But each car needed to be memorable and a character in its own right. “The focus is on the cars, but it’s a human story,” Webster said.

This spirit was best expressed in 2005’s Most Wanted, a smash hit that sold 16 million copies and became the best-selling real-life racing game of all time. Though the car roster only included 32 models, the story put players in direct competition with enhanced and painted versions of the “most wanted” villain cars, competing against pink cars for the chance to drive them themselves. Forget about the opposing drivers; the opposing cars themselves were evil, aggressive, and clearly defined villains. The blue-and-white E46 BMW M3 GTR in particular was so iconic that fans still recreate its actual paint job to this day.

A decade and a half later, Need for Speed ​​is struggling to reach its former heights. Games since Most Wanted still sold millions of copies, but Lemke points out that the annual release schedule didn’t mesh well with the complexities of modern games. Other annual game series, such as Call Of Duty, have multiple development teams across different studios, giving each team three years to deliver a finished product, while publishers enjoy the relevance and added benefits of annual releases. With smaller teams, sticking to the calendar has become increasingly difficult.

Carbon, the sequel to Most Wanted, made less than a quarter of that game’s sales. ProStreet performed even worse. The relaunch of Hot Pursuit in 2010 revitalized the franchise, but ultimately the Need For Speed ​​era from 2006 to 2018 was a disappointment. From a reboot of the series simply called Need for Speed ​​to the microtransaction-packed Payback, no game developed by Ghost Games during this period ever reached the same heights as its biggest hits.

Ghost Games’ latest release, NFS Heat, brings back some of the magic. The neon-drenched Miami Vice aesthetic and revamped Polestar 1 title car marked a return to the silliness and creativity that made the series a hit. The game lets you switch between sanctioned daytime street races and nighttime diversionary action, with a narrative story punctuated by eerie fun. It’s inspired by what Webster calls the “inherent silliness” we love about cars – the sheer absurdity of unleashing a horde of two-ton controlled exploding machines on public roads. This isn’t the most realistic or most accurate racing game on the market. That’s the most fun, right?

People who simply like cars will probably choose Gran Turismo and Forza, Webster acknowledges, and that will always remain a strong niche market. But the continuing boom in the gaming industry is attracting a much larger group of gamers who like games but aren’t yet excited about cars. For Webster, Need for Speed’s role is to lure them in and show them what a great driving experience actually feels like. It’s not about the fastest lap times or the most expensive cars. It’s about proving that a car can be more than a soulless lump of metal.