Need for Speed Payback Reviews
Need for Speed Payback is a decent racing game held back by a weak story, grinding, and micro-transactions. If you can live with these elements, you will have a lot of fun in this game.
Need For Speed Payback feels like stepping into the latest Fast and Furious, and it's a great ride.
Need for Speed: Payback delivers exciting new ideas, but it is not the arcade-racing dream we hoped for.
Review in German | Read full review
Arcade racing is what has defined Need for Speed since its creation, and Payback is not an exception to this rule. However, due unbalanced progression and the irrelevant single player campaign, this new iteration seem rather uninspired and lackluster.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Despite Need for Speed Payback’s accessible and gratifying approach to arcade racing, the time needed to progress in a satisfactory manner regresses the joy of the rubber meeting the road to a grind that ironically brings the pace of the game to a grinding halt. Need for Speed Payback totes itself as a romp of reckless abandon but ultimately lacks the longevity, charisma and conviction necessary to make it a ride worth taking.
The new Need for Speed has some serious problems that need to be addressed: mainly, the over-use of loot boxes (and microtransactions) and a broken progression system that relies too much on randomness and grinding. The story is cringeworthy, full of bidimensional characters and annoying catch-phrases. All that being said, the arcade driving model is accessible and extremely fun as always, and the open world is pretty big and full of activities that can keep the player engaged for a long time. Oh, and you're gonna spend a lot of time in the garage pimping your ride.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Need for Speed Payback might be a new low point for the franchise. A horrendous progression system compounded by uninteresting characters and terrible AI only illustrates how far behind this series has fallen compared to the other arcade racers out there. The multiplayer is solid, but that's like saying at least the car wreck didn't cause a fire, too.
The Need For Speed formula seems to be a little worn out, but Payback tries to get all the good stuff from the franchise plus some new additions to renew it, even if it doesn't get to be the best game in the series.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Need For Speed: Payback is fast and fun. It's definitely a fantastic addition to any game library and if you've left the franchise completely. NFS Payback makes the case that it's time to come back.
Need For Speed Payback represents EA's answer to where most racers are headed -– massive worlds, large car lists, extensive customisation options and plenty of things to do.
Predominantly a game that is trying to do too many things at once. Unfortunately, it fails to stand out in any one area.
Need for Speed returns in this, a grossly unremarkable open world racer that marks another step back for the series.
Microtransactions, loot boxes, mediocre characters, boring scenario and lots of grinding. Dear EA, what have you done?
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Somewhere, Need for Speed Payback makes absolute sense to someone.
Good fun for those looking for a game that plays like a summer popcorn action flick.
Need for Speed Payback tried to do a lot of new things without succeeding in any of them as needed. I have no problem with games get some ideas from each other, which is what the game has done here, which quoted many things from Forza Horizon 3. On the other hand it removed some of the essentials in the franchise, such as the famous cops chases, it is now more like passing through certain checkpoints to escape cops cars. The game also features great cars customization options but offers the worst car upgrade method available in any racing game.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
There's a perfectly fine racing game somewhere in this mess of half-baked ideas. A fun arcade racer has been drowned in enough ‘one more thing' additions to fill the entire run of Columbo, and the result is a rather unpleasant muddle of bland story, stop-start driving, and player control being ripped away just as things get juicy.
The worst Need For Speed game of the modern era, that leaves no stone unturned in its attempts to make itself as boring, repetitive, and exploitative as possible.
If you’re a big enough fan to still excuse what I’ve encountered and play what’s fun in the game, go right ahead. But for those new or not too crazy for the Need For Speed franchise, it’s worth holding off until the mess is cleaned up.