The Need For Speed games are not just about intense racing in urban areas, but also a high degree of car customization. This has made the franchise popular because it allows players to create their own builds, which in turn makes the experience more unique. As the gaming world tentatively prepares for the next entry in the franchise, Need For Speed: Heat can prime players both new and old. Heat is probably the few Need For Speed games that players can jump into easily, because it's more fleshed out than most open-world entries. One of the best things about Need For Speed: Heat is how much customization can be done.
Need For Speed: Heat features tiers for car parts that can improve performance. Players will start off at base stats with stock before moving on to sport, pro, super, elite, and ultimate. Except for ultimate and elite parts, players can race and earn money to buy parts. However, getting ultimate parts is harder, and require players to be more aggressive with racing and driving.
Heat Level Races
Need For Speed's high-energy playstyle makes it stand out from other open-world racing games like Forza Horizon 5. The Heat Level races in the game highlight just that. These types of races make player drive better, and allow them to get ultimate parts faster, granted they've unlocked the previous tiers. Heat Level races may seem difficult, but they actually scale the AI drivers to the player's level. Still, players should get their car to go as fast as possible. While it won't matter for the race, it'll matter for getting away from the cops.
To start off, players should race at night, and find a race that's at least level 300. If they win, the player's Heat Level will jump to 3. From there, they should get a top-three finish, and then they'll unlock a Heat Level 3 race.
At that time, the player will automatically unlock an ultimate part, which will be indicated on their mini-map. Now, all players need to do is avoid cops if they're being chased and head to a garage, where they'll see the part they've unlocked.
Drive At Night
Need For Speed: Heat is the first game in the series to give players options for what time they drive. In the daytime, players can do day-specific missions, and nighttime works the same way. The day and night cycle makes the story of Need For Speed: Heat engaging and more realistic. Playing at night gives players more benefits, but also comes with a cost.
Players should make sure to tune their car to perfection before getting too aggressive. Playing at night works in tandem with getting the Heat Level races, because everything doubles at night. This means getting rep and unlocking new things will happen faster, which can make it easier to get those ultimate parts easier. On top of that, as mentioned above, driving during the night is the only way to get those Heat Level races. However, players should be cautious playing at night due to the risk. If players are in a high-level cop chase, losing the cops becomes harder, and if they get caught, they'll lose everything.
Elite Parts
Provided players are at a high enough rep level (50 or above), and they've unlocked all the elite parts for the car, Need For Speed: Heat will reward them with an ultimate part. However, while this seems to be the easiest aspect of getting ultimate parts, it takes more time. Prior to rep level 50, the game awards players with elite parts for the High Heat level races. Try to get all elite parts first — the reward for doing so, as mentioned before, is an ultimate part.
The good thing about Need For Speed: Heat is that the game doesn't reward duplicate ultimate parts. During the same night, players can acquire all elite parts while doing a few Heat Level races, and get the reward. Then, while maintaining the same Heat Level, they can do another Heat Level activity which yields a separate award.
Additionally, if players go to Heat Level 5, which is easier to do with elite parts, they'll get rewarded with an ultimate plus part. This increases the performance of the car even further. By using elite parts and maintaining a high enough rep level, players can potentially get three ultimate parts in one night, if they don't get caught.
Need For Speed: Heat is available now on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC.