Need for Speed: No Limits

Gameplay

Need for Speed: No Limits has a heavy focus on street racing, vehicle customization, and avoiding the police.

The player must race in "Underground races" (which is considered the game's story mode) and "Car Series races" (where only certain cars may participate to win in-game rewards). As well, the player can participate in time-limited special events, where the player will be loaned a special car for use in the event. If the player finishes the event before the event time runs out, the player will be able to keep the loaned car as a completion reward.

Most cars in the game can be customized with wheels, body-kits, widebody kits, paint jobs, and wraps, in addition to performance upgrade. Unique cars acquired from time-limited special events (as well as Ferrari cars), however, can never be visually customized.

Special events

The first time-limited special event of the game was held from 7 to 12 October 2015, in collaboration with American rapper Snoop Dogg. In this event, the player was given a chance to try out the Ford Shelby GT500 specially marked as "Snoop Dogg", which the player would use for the Muscle-Off street racing tournament organized by the Renegades. The event was rerun on November 2015 and later November 2016.

In relation with the 2005 game Need for Speed: Most Wanted (which was a high success for EA and the Need for Speed franchise), a special event that ran between 28 October and 2 November 2015 brought the game's main antagonist, Clarence "Razor" Callahan, to Blackridge. The player was granted an opportunity to race using a specially-modified BMW M4 with a livery based on the 2005 game's BMW M3 GTR (E46). This event also introduced an undercover cop named Officer Rivera as the player's partner for the event, who knew much of Razor's past and wanted to keep him out of Blackridge. The event was rerun on March 2016.

The next special event, called "Xtreme Racing Championship", running between 25 and 30 November 2015, followed the story of the player taking part in the eponymous racing tournament. In this event, the player teamed up with professional rally driver Ken Block, and was given access to the Ford Mustang Hoonicorn to compete against Ivy's Flaming Skulls street racing crew.

To celebrate Christmas, the game held a special event running between 22 and 27 December 2015. In this event, dubbed "Lamborghini Accademia", the player was loaned a Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4, and was tasked with completing a series of races under snowy condition, assisted by Bob Natale and his Little Helpers crew.

Another event, which ran between 8 and 13 February 2016 to celebrate the Chinese New Year, the player got a chance to try out the Jaguar F-Type. In this event, the player was introduced to Trippa and his Monkey Crew, who would accompany the player throughout the event, and an exclusive gameplay feature called "Aura".

An event, which began on 19 June 2016, gives the player a chance to own the Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 by restoring it through a series of races over the course of five days. The car will automatically be modified with a Speedhunters kit based on the Nismo Z-Tune when won, but can be made stock.

An event series called Fastlane started on 13 July 2016. The first car was the Nissan 180SX Type X, followed by the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T, later a rerun of the Jaguar F-Type event, followed by the 2006 Ford GT, the Nissan Silvia S15 and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI.

Another event ran from 11 to 18 August 2016, entitled Devil's Run, an event inspired by Need for Speed: The Run where the player can win the Lamborghini Diablo SV by winning a 100-car race driving it.

In March 2017, a special event was launched, which features the player teaming up with Hot Wheels designer Jun Imai to build a real-life Hot Wheels car: the Time Attaxi.

Development

The game was developed by Firemonkeys Studios (Real Racing 3 developers) and was published by Electronic Arts. The game was released on iOS on January 6, 2015, but only in Taiwan and the Netherlands. The game was initially only playable in Dutch as an alpha version for early testing. The game was released on Android on February 17, 2015 as a beta version, and was still only available in Dutch. The worldwide launch was in English, with better compatibility for quad-core and octa-core devices in which the game often crashed at its beta version. A new teaser trailer was released on YouTube on 18 September 2015. The worldwide release of the finished game was on 30 September 2015.

Reception

Need for Speed: No Limits received mixed reviews. Critics praised the game's visuals, controls and gameplay, but criticized its aggressive free-to-play system and short races. Review aggregator websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the game 72% based on 5 reviews and 67/100 based on 8 reviews.

Harry Slater of Pocket Gamer gave the game a score of 8 out of 10, praising the game's visuals, fast gameplay and free access, but criticizing the game's short races. Keith Andrew of TrustedReviews gave the game 3/5, criticising the need to pay a considerable amount of microtransactions if players want to access all cars.