Need For Speed: Hot Import Nights

Need For Speed: Hot Import Nights is a racing video game co-developed by Execraft and Ghost Games, and published by Electronic Arts. Released worldwide on November 17, 2029 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows, it is the 25th entry of the Need For Speed series, made to commemorate the franchise's 35th anniversary. This game features the mixed story plot crossover between Need for Speed: Underground 2 and Need for Speed: Carbon, with the original characters are made by Seven Arcs Pictures the creator behind Lyrical Nanoha series, as well as the vehicles are Auto Modellista art style which marked itself apart from others of the same genre with cel-shaded graphics, which gave a hand-drawn and cartoon-like appearance.

Overview
The game is fairly similar to Need for Speed: Carbon, but it has some similarities to the newer NFS games (such as Unbound) too. It has vastly better graphics than the previous games in it's saga, but the vehicle designs are Auto Modellista art style, even using some of the Special Effects introduced in NFS: Unbound. The car system is fairly similar to the one present in Carbon, with Tuners, Exotics and Muscles, however, it uses the letter tiers from C, B, A and S indicates overpowered performance capability.

The day/night system from Heat would be mirrored into this game, but it uses the day/week/month elapse format from Heroes of Might & Magic III. Both day and night times are for all races (including 10 Crew Outrun), but every 8 win races (excluding 10 Crew Outrun wins), it changes from day time to night time. Once win every 16 races, the current day ends and the next day begins.

Gameplay
Need For Speed Hot Import Nights plays similar to Need for Speed: Carbon, using the driving physics from Carbon with a touch of Underground 2 collision physics and a high speed driving physics from Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2005. Players take the role of multiple protagonists and progress in the career mode by beating a series of various race events. Career mode will see players completing races and tuning their vehicles as they advance through the game.

General gameplay has a multiple career mode campaigns: Ruka/Sara/Josh/Mick, The Yagami, The T.F.K. The 21st Fest and Mach, each campaign has different protagonist roles with different plot variations, for instance: Ruka, Sara and Josh campaigns are story plot from Underground 2 all the way to Carbon, while The T.F.K. campaign is only Carbon's plot with a touch of Undercover.

The Speedbreaker ability in Hot Import Nights is available for the player to use at any time in any event, which allows the player to enter a temporary state of slow motion. Players are able to directly turn their vehicle at excessive angles and speeds whilst under the effect of Speedbreaker. The Speedbreaker can be used during a race to allow players to maneuver their vehicle through tight corners without having to slow down from high speeds. The exception was the Street X race events which disable Speedbreaker ability.

Progression system
The progression system in Need For Speed Hot Import Nights is very similar to the one in Underground 2. Careers splits into 2 cities, the Bayview and the Palmont, with each seeing an increase in difficulty. Players will be able to enter a new district of Bayview and also access through Palmont as they advance through the game alongside new parts and vehicles.

Also the player has 6 Crews in Bayview and Palmont cities to defeat (from weakest to strongest): Bushido, 21st Street Crew, T.F.K., Mezzanotte Club, The Wraiths and The Stacked Deck. In order to defeat a Crew boss, the player needs to race with its leader, and in order to do that, the player must modify any car to a higher star rating as well as winning Sponsor races and HIN racing leagues to unlock the crew boss race.

Free Roam
Like Underground 2, players can drive around the city of Bayview and Palmont. Bayview is divided into five districts with different aesthetics and roads within each, while Palmont is divided into 4 boroughs just like in Carbon: Downtown, Kempton, Fortuna and Silverton. The new city is called the Infinity Highway and this also treated as the city which connected between Bayview and Palmont. Players can visit Tuning Shops, Car Lots, and race events seen around the entire city. Player can use a GPS to help navigate around the city.

Events
Note: All race events are no traffic vehicles appeared during racing with exception of 10 crew outrun.


 * Circuit - Players compete against other racers in closed circuits with a set number of laps.
 * Lap Elimination (AKA Lap Knockout) - Circuit races that eliminate the last racer of each lap.
 * Sprint - Players compete against other racers along closed roads from Point A to Point B.
 * Drag - Speed and shifting races without traffics could avoid them. Players compete against other racers along a closed straight road. The winner is the racer to complete the stretch of road in the shortest time.
 * Drift - Players have to slide around corners in order to gain points along a closed circuit. Players earn more points depending on the speed and angle of their slide. The winner is the racer with the highest amount of points at the end.
 * 10 Crew Outrun - Similar mechanic of Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3's 10 outrun mode with a touch of Canyon Duel's. The leader must overtake 10 opponents before the timer runs out. The chasing player stays ahead for 5 seconds, the opponent is overtaken and additional 30 seconds timer is awarded for the player. If you overtaken the first opponent, then the next opponent will appear. If you defeat 10 opponents in succession, it means you have successfully completed this event.
 * Speedtrap - Speed-focused sprint races. Participants pass through a series of checkpoints along a course that record their speed at that point. The racer with the highest total speed recorded combined across all points by the end of the event is the winner. Once the first racer crosses the finish line, the score of the other participants will be slowly reduced as penalty until they cross the finish line.
 * Checkpoint/Tollbooth - Time-limited checkpoint/tollbooth races. Unlike other race events, tollbooth/checkpoint races aren't against any opponents. Each tollbooth/checkpoint event begins at a tollbooth or checkpoint and the player's objective is to reach the final tollbooth or checkpoint before running out of time. The player passes through other tollbooths and or checkpoint along the way, which act as checkpoints; additional time is awarded when the player passes through them.
 * Street X - Players compete against other racers in closed circuits along tight corner roads with a set number of laps. Also Nitrous and Speedbreakers are unavailable in Street X race.
 * HIN Racing League - Players compete against other racers in a tournament on a closed race course. Racers get points after each race based on their position. The winner is the racer that has collected the most points after the final race. Each URL win unlocks a car in the car lots.

Characters
Similar to playable characters in Need For Speed Payback, players take on the role of multiple protagonists in the single player multiple character campaigns.


 * Bold denotes default characters are active from the beginning and a player character.
 * * denote characters are unlockables from finishing the character campaigns or complete certain conditions during the career mode.

Playable

 * Ruka Cooper (As the player character in Ruka Campaign)
 * Sara Pavilion (As the player character in Sara Campaign)
 * Josh Delgado (As the player character in Josh Campaign)
 * Elise Wilsons (As one of the player characters in TFK Campaign)
 * Riche Wilsons (As one of the player characters in TFK Campaign)
 * Vanellope Valenzuela (As one of the player characters in 21st Fest Campaign)
 * Jimmy Gonzales (As one of the player characters in 21st Fest Campaign)
 * Sakura Fujiwara (As one of the player characters in Tokyo Drift Campaign)
 * Hayato Fujiwara (As one of the player characters in Tokyo Drift Campaign)
 * *Subaru Yagami
 * *Mick Lamborghini
 * *Mach Barrows (As the player character in Mach Campaign)
 * *Kenji Yagami
 * *Angie Gonzales
 * *Wolf Wolsagent
 * *Foxy Valentine
 * *Melissa Mezzanotte
 * *Weir Koenig
 * *Alice Arash (As one of the player characters in Ronnie TFK Campaign)
 * *Ronnie Martin (As one of the player characters in Ronnie TFK Campaign)
 * *John & Nancy (As the player characters in Project Silverton Campaign)
 * *Shouka Akaikuro (As the player character in Project Silverton Campaign)
 * *Chiron Veregatti (As one of the player characters in Mezzanotte Campaign)
 * *Chiara Veregatti (As one of the player characters in Mezzanotte Campaign)

Unplayable
UNPC Support Characters


 * Rachel Teller
 * Neville
 * Jake Paterson
 * Mike Paterson

UNPC racers (HINRLs only)


 * Marguerite Miller
 * Jane Kisaragi
 * Maria Dhyne
 * Rita de la Rosa
 * Doug Bugster
 * Enrico Estebeth
 * Daryl Hawnet
 * Christopher Lockstone

UNPC Boss Crew Racers


 * Damien
 * Takashi
 * Jayna
 * Carter
 * Gagne
 * Caleb Recce
 * Hayato Stacker
 * Darius the Street Demon King

Cars
Need For Speed: Hot Import Nights has a variety of vehicles. Much like in Need for Speed: Carbon. The game have notable inclusions in its car roster, such as Tuner cars, American muscle cars, Exotic Cars and SUV vehicles. The garage can be filled up with 20 cars independent of tier and design class. This number limit excludes pink slips rewards from bosses, which means the player can have up to 21 cars if the three bosses' cars were awarded. All cars are categorized in performance tiers and car categories:


 * Tier C - Low performance capabilities
 * Tier B - Moderate performance capabilities
 * Tier A - High performance capabilities
 * Tier S - Overpowered performance capabilities


 * Exotic - Highest top speeds
 * Muscle - Quickest acceleration
 * Tuners - Best handling

Performance
Performance customisation is just as comprehensive as visual tuning. Players are allowed to install various performance modifications to their vehicle.

Players can purchase individual upgrade parts that are divided into three classes with fine-tunable elements available before final purchase. As each vehicle is only competitive with other vehicles of the same tier, players cannot upgrade their performance tier.

New additions in Hot Import Nights include Fine-tuning and a Dyno Run for players to adjust their vehicles' performance abilities using "Simple" or "Advanced" (Simple uses the same tuning mechanics from NFS Carbon while Advanced uses the tuning mechanics from NFS Underground 2.

Visuals
Like in Need For Speed: Underground 2 with a touch of Need for Speed: Carbon, the player utilizes most of the customization options. Players can modify almost any part of their vehicle such as lights, bumpers, side mirrors, stereo equipment and Spinners, as well as in addition of Classic Underglows, Engine Underglows, Customizable Vinyls with Light Stickers, Customizable HUD and Customizable Trunk Space.

Need for Speed: Hot Import Nights offers a bigger range of customisation items and options similar to NFS Heat's Customization mechanics, such as Need for Speed: Carbon; the Autosculpt feature allows players to visually modify custom vehicle exterior parts. Decals and Vinyls are no longer fixated to certain areas and may be moved and reshaped by players (maximum vinlys count of 200, also the livery design that you made can be save, load or delete from the game's livery saved files), while decals are still fixed, but now as secondary decals which only be put on certain parts of a car (doors, fenders, hoods, roofs and bonnet).

The Star Rating from Need for Speed: Underground 2 is also used.

Players will be offered to appear on the cover of a magazine after reaching certain star rating levels. Players will be given a phone call from Rachel to tell them the location of the cover shoot, but the player has to reach it before the photographer leaves.

Players will enter photo mode upon reaching the photo shoot. The player can drive, show off their interior customisations and utilize different camera angles in order to find a good shot for the magazine cover.

Owned cars can be customized within the career mode by visiting any of the tuning shops around Bayview; Body Shop, Car Specialties Shop, Graphics Shop, and Performance Shop. Palmont city however, they still have 5 tuning shops found in Downtown, Kempton, Fortuna and Silverton.

Soundtrack
Soundtracks in Need For Speed: Hot Import Nights are various Eurobeat tracks from various Initial D arcade games e.g. Initial D The Arcade instead of NFS licensed music tracks. Every races with Eurobeat music list are different depending on the character's driving e.g. Ruka's driving was Manuel eurobeat tracks, event specific such as HINRL tournaments or boss races e.g. Takashi's boss race with the BGM Don't Turn It Off by Go2.

Trivia

 * Pigeon Park within Beacon Hill holds a Brad Lawless Memorial Park is replaced by Bayview Sun Dial Park, which predicts the in-game day and night times.