Need for Speed: The Run’s story is just there to “give you a reason why you’re racing”, it’s “not a heavy story based game”
In Need for Speed: The Run you play as Jack, a man in deep trouble with the mob (good one Jack) and has one way out - a coast-to-coast race with the first place prize of $25M. That'd buy off any gangster with enough change for a lot of fast cars and petrol.
Previous Need for Speed titles have run with an attempt at creating a story that drives the player through the game. Those who remember Most Wanted, Carbon and the Underground serious will remember, in some caes, that it had an engaging on-going story that was enjoyed by many.
So, with the idea of 'The Run', it sounds like a great little story, so is it?
In a recent interview with Steve Anthony, Senior Producer on Need for Speed: The Run, we asked about how big a role the storyline is going to play in the game.
XG247 (Sam Clay): In the past there have been Need For Speed titles that are remembered for their storyline, are you trying to more tell a story than be a racing experience?
Steve Anthony: I wouldn’t say so, I think the story is always there to provide a fiction, a context as to why you’re racing. We definitely have a story and definitely give the player reasons why he’s in this race or why he needs to get to certain points, but we’re not a heavy story based game, you’re not going to be watching over an hours worth of cinematic sequences, we do want to get you back into the racing, but we want to give you a reason why you’re racing, we want to give you context.
Some games fit a heavy story, but racing games as a whole don't. All we really need from the story is to provide the context as to what's going on and why we're holding the right trigger and wiggling the stick left and right, however several titles in the Need for Speed franchise have given the story a more central role so it's going to be interesting to see how the series' long-term fans take the new role of the storyline.
