STACK July 2017 Issue 153

105 / 107

When the E3 trailer debuted for
Need For Speed Payback, there
was an instant comparison to
the Fast and Furious films being made.
The feeling of family, of togetherness,
was one that resonated through the crew
shown in the EA Play trailer, and one that,
according to game director William Ho,
was a conscious choice.
“Growing up, I really wanted to make
racing games. I loved Hot
Wheels, TV shows and movies
with cars… I’m basically a
walking encyclopaedia when
it comes to car stunts and
how they look and feel. For
Need For Speed Payback , it
just made sense to tap into
not necessarily one franchise
in particular, but a lifetime of
knowledge and memories. You
could say it’s been 40 years in
the making.”
We jumped in for 20
minutes with Payback on the ground
at EA Play, and the short hands-on
we got makes it look as though the
game is shaping up to be as fast and
as furious as ever. The story mode
features a roster of three characters
that Ho hopes will appeal to every
type of driver.
“What we found from our fans is
that people really want a strong cast
of characters that you can relate to.
We have Tyler the street racer,
who handles the racing, Mac
the showman, who handles
the drifting, offroad, and huge
jumps, and then we have Jess;
she’s the true action hero. She
gets a lot of heroic moments,
and she’s always threading
through traffic and doing stuff
without getting caught. We
hope they represent all the
different motivations that people have for
driving their cars ridiculously fast.”
The mission we played through had
us fight off a few cars escorting a
semi to an undisclosed location that
has a rather fast car on board we
wouldn’t mind driving. The handling
is great, and there were even a few
slow-mo crash sequences thrown in
that were real eyebrow-raisers.
This Need For Speed is as much for
the veteran fans as it is for people who’ve
never even heard of the franchise.
“Our fans are hardcore - we don’t
wanna lose ‘em, because they’re the most
vocal and most loyal,” offers the director.
“We want to pay it back to them [ohhhhh
is that where the name comes from?].
Some fans grew up Need For Speed
fans, and now they have kids who play it.
They’re fostering a whole new generation,
and not every racing game has that. It’s
pretty cool.”
2 1
I’m basically
a walking
encyclopaedia
when it comes
to car stunts and
how they look
and feel
continued