Need for Speed Beyond

Unofficial fan concept. Need for Speed: Beyond is a fan-made game concept written by Johnny Kestler. It is not a real product, not in development, and not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by Electronic Arts Inc. or any of its studios. Need for Speed and all related titles referenced here — Underground, Underground 2, Most Wanted, Carbon, ProStreet, Shift — are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. All vehicle manufacturers, series and championships named here are the property of their respective owners and are referenced for illustrative purposes only. The author has no connection to Electronic Arts. This concept is written for its own sake, as a design exercise, and is distributed non-commercially.

Need for Speed: Beyond is a single-player racing game concept built on two halves of one car culture: the illegal street scene of Nitroit, an open-world American industrial city, and the Revada Festival, a months-long sanctioned racing festival a day's drive west. Its protagonist, Jake Spaid, is a trained junior driver who quit racing after his father died leading a professional championship. He conquers the streets alone, then has to assemble a team out of the people he met there to enter the one place he has been avoiding.

30 documents · 6 parts

Start reading: Premise and Identity →

00 · Vision

1. Premise and IdentityWhat the game is, how its two halves differ, and the design principles everything else follows.
2. Production ScopeThe committed scope: length, car count, NPC count, camera, cutscenes, online.

01 · Story

1. BackstoryJohn, Grace and Jake Spaid before the game begins: the death, the inheritance, the inversion at the core of the story.
2. CampaignThe act structure, the opening, the arrival of the festival, and Acts 4 and 5.
3. EndingThe championship win, the contract, the final sequence, the post-credits scene and what stays open afterwards.
4. CastEvery named character: the Spaids, crew leaders, unaffiliated racers, mechanics and their families, radio hosts, festival title holders.
5. Crew StorylinesThe nine personal storylines that lead to Loyal: one per crew leader and unaffiliated racer.

02 · World

1. NitroitThe city's history, street layout, terrain, green space and scale.
2. The Street SceneWhere the street scene came from, the seven crews and their entry rules, taking, leading and defending districts, and street culture.
3. RadioHow Nitroit's radio works and its three stations.
4. RevadaThe state of Revada, why it is not an open world, and its ten festival venues.

03 · Systems

1. Driving and DamageThe single driving model, the festival simulation layer, and how damage and repair work in each half.
2. Cars and BuildingVehicle classes, performance tuning, customisation, Presentation, cultural fit and Blueprints.
3. Property and StorageWhere cars are kept: property types, capacity, indoor and outdoor storage, rent and ownership.
4. TimeThe continuous clock, what takes time, the festival race-date windows, and waiting between editions.
5. Reputation (REP)REP: every gain and loss, the twelve titles, and how REP relates to Standing.
6. Relationships: Standing and PersonalityStanding with individual NPCs, its inputs, ceiling and decay, shop credit, and racer Personality.
7. PoliceHeat and starting heat, fines, impound, auctions, borrowing a car, and the police List.
8. Street EventsStreet event types, wagers, roaming racers and Invitationals.
9. Magazines and Photo ModeMagazine feature offers, the shoot and its scoring, and Photo Mode.
10. Blueprint NetworkThe asynchronous online layer: sharing, applying, crediting and endorsing Blueprints.

04 · The Festival

1. The Revada FestivalWhat the Revada Festival is, why it is hard, the shift in mindset it demands, and what carries over from the city.
2. The TeamRegistration, roster, recruitment, the Invitational problem, salaries, prize money, teammates' cars and the frozen roster.
3. MechanicsMechanics: Expertise, specialist discipline, Insights and the build dialogue.
4. The SeasonField size, how an event runs, the season calendar, race length and what strategy means.
5. DisciplinesThe five disciplines, how each runs with two team cars, and the five-car requirement.
6. RegulationsThe technical rulebook enforced at scrutineering.
7. Rank and ChampionshipClassification and scoring, Rank, qualification, Grades and titles, team leaders, the championship and the Circuit Final.

05 · Reference

1. GlossaryOne-line definitions of the game's coined terms, each linked to the file that owns it.
2. ReferencesReal-world sources checked, and which statements are verified fact versus project decision.