Interior customisation in Need for Speed is “high on our list,” says developer

Vehicle customisation has been a staple of most Need for Speed games since the Underground series jumped on the tuner car craze.

Most cars in Need for Speed Unbound can be extensively modified with over 10,000 customisation items, allowing you to change the wheels, apply garish body kits, or remove bumpers. You can also create custom paint jobs and striking liveries with the wrap editor.

However, customisation is restricted to exteriors. This means you can’t modify the interior by adding seats and custom gauges or changing the trim colours.

During a roundtable event celebrating Need for Speed’s 30^th anniversary attended by Traxion, Criterion revealed that the studio is keen to explore deeper interior customisation in Need for Speed when the time is right.  

“We always want to look at that,” said Producer Patrick Honnoraty.

“It’s a trade-off that we always have between how much it costs to do it. There are a massive amount of cars that we have to go back over and add all of those interiors to the right level. It is something that we want to do.”

“It’s a great area for customisation,” he continued.

“Once you get to that point, people treat their cars like their houses. They do all kinds of things to the interior of those cars, which we don’t touch. It adds a great level of personalisation.

While other elements have taken priority, Honnoraty added that interior customisation is “high on our list.”

“It’s always on our list to do – I think it’s just a question of priorities that we have in terms of the requirements of the game and what we need to do. I would say it’s high on our list.”

Could cockpit cameras return to Need for Speed?

This opens the possibility of cockpit views returning to Need for Speed. After all, interior options would be redundant if you can’t look inside the cars.

Launched 30 years ago, the first NFS game, 1994’s Road and Track Presents: The Need for Speed on 3D0, MS-DOS and PlayStation, featured detailed dashboard views, putting you in the driver’s seat of exotic supercars. This was a novelty in early 1990s driving games, with the cockpit camera being the default viewpoint.

Credit: MobyGames

However, the last NFS game with a cockpit camera was Shift 2: Unleashed, a closed-circuit racing spin-off released in 2011. Developed by Slightly Mad Studios, the Shift games introduced a dynamic helmet camera that looks into apex corners.

Shift’s standard cockpit cameras were still immersive, with motion blur and camera shake effects heightening the sense of speed. Since Shift 2, interior views have been absent in the NFS series unless you resort to unofficial mods.

With Criterion seemingly keen to bring interior customisation to Need for Speed, this could change in the future, but nothing is confirmed yet.  

Would you like to see interior customisation and cockpit cameras in Need for Speed? Let us know in the comments below.