Update: The Need for Speed Heat trailer is officially here, and the game itself is coming out on November 8. EA announced that Need for Speed Heat will focus on the racers-versus-cops fantasy, with players participating in legal races during the day to earn cash then facing off in underground competitions by night to build their street cred.
Original story: The official reveal of the next Need for Speed game is coming on Wednesday, and a few leaked images have already revealed both the title - Need for Speed Heat - and what appears to be one of the game's characters. EA is hosting a countdown for the debut on YouTube, with a trailer set to go live on Wednesday at 6 am PDT / 9 pm EDT / 2 pm BST. You can watch the full trailer via the embedded player above as soon as it arrives.
It looks like the carefully coordinated YouTube rollout has had a few glitches. As spotted by AllGamers, YouTube's publicly accessible backend is already hosting several pictures that will serve as thumbnail images for the trailer once it goes live. One of the images is a big picture of the logo, which has NFS: Heat written in stylized lettering over a blue and purple gradient.
The hot pink "Heat" on top of the neon background gives the whole thing a Miami Vice feel, but any speculation that the game might be an '80s throwback will probably be undone by the next picture.
This image shows a woman in a modern-looking car, glaring out of a halfway-rolled-down and heavily tilted window. She has a tattooed arm and what looks like buzzed hair on the sides. This seems to confirm that Need for Speed: Heat will continue to emphasize a story mode that follows a dedicated cast of characters, as did Need for Speed Payback. You can't tell much else from the screenshots, but at least you can be pretty sure that it won't have the slot-machine style car upgrade system from Payback, because everybody hated it.
EA confirmed back in May that a new Need for Speed game will arrive in 2019, so barring any unexpected delays, we won't have to wait too long to take Need for Speed Heat for a spin.
Find more to play in our list of new games 2019. Or check out our Need For Speed Heat tips for how to rule the road!
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