An overseas retail listing outed Need for Speed Unbound as the next game in EA and Criterion’s racing franchise, a day before the publisher scheduled an official announcement.
The next Need for Speed will lean hard into an anime aesthetic, if the screens from an overseas product listing are any indication.
On Wednesday, members of the Need for Speed subreddit spotted the leaked listing for Need For Speed Unbound via Japanese retailer Neowing. The listing says the new game will launch in December. Electronic Arts has an announcement coming Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT, when it will reveal more about the next game.
The Neowing site included five screenshots, watermarked NFS Unbound, showing a variety of tuned-up vehicles, presented realistically, but with cel-shaded, anime-style drivers and other NPCs in the frame. In one screen, a street racer throws hand-drawn, star-shaped sparks and its tires leave a two-dimensional smoke trail as it takes a corner.
According to a machine-translated product description of Need for Speed Unbound, the game will feature music (and an in-game appearance) from rapper A$AP Rocky, with a soundtrack produced by Brodinski, a French composer and DJ.
