"Risk/reward" with cop attention in Need for Speed Heat

Need for Speed is coming back with Heat, and at Gamescom we talked with producer John Wikberg and senior game designer Yoni Rabinowitz about the open-world and the cops within it, who chase you at night when you're doing illegal races and activities.

"I think bringing back open-world cops, bringing back that street racer vibe - I think that's been super important for this game," Rabinowitz said.

"They're really fun. They're out there, they're patrolling," Wikberg added. "At night they're mainly looking for the illicit street races that are happening, and as you're doing illicit things at night you're gonna build up the Heat. The Heat is our concept of how much cop attention you have around you and in the world, and also how intense the cop chases will be."

"At low Heat levels you're gonna encounter the slower cops, the weaker cop cars - not gonna be that much of a threat, and if you have a faster car it's probably going to outdrive them, which is really fun. The more Heat you have the harder cars you're gonna encounter, and they're gonna be tough, they're gonna be fast, and you're gonna need to use more skill and more battling tactics to get away from them."

"I think one interesting thing about Heat and how you deal with the open-world cops is that at night you can never lose your Heat," Rabinowitz continued. "Even once you've lost the cops and they don't know where you are, your Heat is still what it was before, so as soon as you get spotted again, that many more cops are looking for you, so as you try to push at night, then that's just building up and building up and building up, and it's really about that risk/reward of trying to see how far you can get it at night while this Heat builds up."

He also went on to say that the Max Heat chases involve all manner of chaos, including helicopters, so they'll certainly be a tough challenge for racers.

Does this sound fun?