Final Need for Speed Heat Update Adds Full Cross-Play

It’s bittersweet news if you’re a fan of Need for Speed Heat. Released in November 2019, it was originally developed by Ghost Games before being taken over by Criterion Games. And now the final Need for Speed Heat update adds full cross-play support, but also marks the end of development on the game.

It means the Electronic Arts title, released to commemorate 25 years of the series, will end updates after just 7 months. But does get a place in history as the first racing game to allow for cross-play between PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 history. It’s also the first cross-play game published by EA.

It’s not the first car game to have cross-platform support, as Rocket League introduced it in January 2019.

As the final Need for Speed Heat update adds full cross-play support, there’s also other good news for fans of the series. Not only will Heat become available through EA Access and Origin Access Basic Vault from June 16th, but the reason for ending support by Criterion appears to be so they can work on the next installment in the franchise.

So the reason for the shorter support may be down to changing the two year release cycle that Need for Speed has been following for recent games. And that means the next Need for Speed title will be for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. The news of the final update teases more information via EA Play Live on June 18th.

It’s a sizeable update, at around 7GB for the console editions, with a number of other improvements and fixes, detailed below.

Need for Speed Heat June 9th 2020 Update Notes:

Cross-play

Added Cross-play functionality across all platforms. 

Once you’ve installed the June update, you will be prompted with the option to activate cross-play, which you can later find in the privacy settings in the game menu. Opting in will allow you to race players across PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on the same server. 

You can search for friends in the Find Players menu. Head over to the Party Menu and check the new EA Friends tab to see who’s online across all platforms. In order to create a party and invite them to your game, they naturally need to opt-in for cross-play as well.

In the game, you will see icons next to players’ names, indicating which platform they’re playing on, and you can use the proximity voice chat to talk to them.

General Fixes

• Improved cop car logic to reduce occurrences where cop cars significantly reduced player car health in one hit.
• Some cops would behave very passive while in a pursuit and not perform maneuvers to stop your car. They should now be more motivated to take you down as long as they’re actively pursuing you. This is no overall buff or nerf of the cops, it just affected a small percentage of cop cars that were pursuing, but not engaging.
• We fixed an issue where some rewards didn’t trigger correctly when hitting 100% of collectables. You should now receive the vanity items Rainbow Nitrous, Black Tire Smoke and the “If you’re happy and you know it” horn.
• Made a few tweaks so you should encounter error DR1005 less often.
• Similarly, the probability of inventory synchronization errors has been significantly reduced.

Visual

• When rushing through the tunnel in Mendoza Keys, you should no longer encounter solid walls popping in.
• Fixed an issue that could cause vegetation to appear on roads when choosing low and medium graphic settings and using a specific video card.
• The ‘Racer Challenges’ in the garage should no longer be displayed after reaching Rep level 50.
• The ‘Rival Crews’ menu is no longer visible in the main menu when you boot the game while offline.
• Fixed an issue where a time trial wouldn’t show any ghost car when you started it.
• After driving to a time trial starting point, looking at the leaderboard panel should no longer be blank.
• A specific beanie was only visible from close range, now it can also be seen from afar.

Audio

• Cops will now refer to the McLaren P1 GTR correctly in cop chatter.

World

• Reworked train wagon collision models in Fort Callahan to prevent your car becoming stuck under them.
• We took a closer look at a few spots where cop cars could drive on the bottom of the ocean or riverbed. Their cars should now get wrecked as intended, and while they’re busy with their own cars, they should no longer be busting you.

Cars

• Added a sound system interaction point for the Aston Martin Vulcan ‘16.
• All colors should now be displayed correctly when using specific paints on the side of the Chevrolet Camaro Z28.
• Decal interaction points for the Lamborghini Aventador S ‘18 and the Roadster variant now work as intended.
• The second set of stock rims now is aligned with the tires of the Land Rover Defender 110 ‘15.
• Added a sound system interaction point for the Land Rover Defender 110 ‘15.
• When using the wide Porsche rear fender on the Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 2.8, aftermarket tail light tints should now be displayed correctly.
• The Alchemist rear bumper for the Ford Mustang ‘65 is now displayed correctly.
• Decals applied to the Varis front bumper of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX ‘07 will no longer vanish when accelerating.
• You can now purchase the stock spoiler for the Nissan 180SX starter car.
• The model of the Porsche Cayman GT4 2015 now has the spoiler equipped that is displayed in the dealership icon.
• Added missing sound system interaction point to the Volkswagen Golf GTI ‘76.
• Added missing sound system interaction point to the Volkswagen Beetle ‘63.

Events

• The AI drivers would follow interesting routes in a handful of races. We took a look and they should now stick to the racing line.
• Fixed an issue that could occur when you restarted a time trial after finishing it for the first time and beating the ghost’s time. The UI could behave in a way that would display the ghost from the first time trial run, while you were actually competing against the next best time. That could lead to situations where you thought you beat the opponent, but you also didn’t. This should no longer occur, and the ghost that you see is the one your time will be measured against.
• When completing the ‘Picknick’ time trial and coming in second, you should now receive the correct amount of Bank.
• You should now be able to restart the ‘Upload’ mission as intended.
• Also improved overall stability and fixed rare instances where the game would crash or hang.

So there are some silver linings for Need for Speed Heat fans disapointed support for the game will be ending.

And it will definitely be interesting to see what Criterion games come up with for their first new Need for Speed title since Hot Pursuit (2010), Most Wanted (2012) and Rivals (2013).

You can check out our Need for Speed Heat coverage during its brief time, here. And should you fancy picking up a copy to enjoy the last update and cross-play experience, it’s available from Game and Amazon. Or as a digital download from the Microsoft Store, PlayStation Store and Steam. And prices are generally reduced by about 50-60% right now, as you might imagine…