There are five different gameplay types: Speed, Style, Crew, Build, and Outlaw where players can earn points for engaging in to progress in the game through five overlapping storylines.

Need for Speed takes place in the fictional city of Ventura Bay and its surroundings which is based on Los Angeles.

The game features real-life tuning companies including RAUH-Welt Begriff, SEIBON, and RTR Mustang.

The story revolves around the player and a small ragtag group of racers waiting to be noticed by any of the game's five icons, all of them being real-world motorsport and street racing figures.

After the race, the final cutscene includes all of them taking a group photo together, with the player wearing a mask to hide his true identity.

In a 2012 interview, Most Wanted executive producer Matt Webster told that while all future Need for Speed games may not be developed by Criterion, the studio would have creative oversight of the franchise moving forward.

After just one year later, during a Gamescom interview with Need for Speed Rivals executive producer Marcus Nilsson told that the newly created Ghost Games studio was now in charge of the franchise; about 80 percent of Criterion was working on Rivals with the remaining group working on a mysterious "new project."

[12] Later in the year, at the Eurogamer Expo, Nilsson hinted that the franchise might return to a style of progression in the future similar to the Underground - Most Wanted - Carbon series.

[19] On 14 September 2015, Electronic Arts announced that Need for Speed for Windows had been delayed to Spring 2016 in order to allow Ghost Games to give the version an unlocked frame rate and increase the visual quality.

[25] On 3 February 2016, Ghost Games released the Showcase Update, which added fully customizable license plates and the ability to share car wraps to friends or the community, in addition to repair shops and improvements on photo-taking features.

[41] Alexander Kalogianni of Digital Trends awarded Need for Speed a score of 6.0 out of 10, praising the game for its gorgeously stylized game world, multitude of tweakable car characteristics, engaging visual, customization options, and cool soundtrack, but criticized it for repetitive mission types and the AI being aloof.

Butterworth praised Need for Speed for the visually stunning city, deep rewarding progression, genuinely customizable handling, and nail-biting sense of speed, but at the same time criticized the rubber-banding AI, draconian drift scoring system, and always-online, rendering the game unable to be paused.

[44] Despite the mixed reception, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Need for Speed for "Racing Game of the Year" during the 19th Annual D.I.C.E.