Need for Speed: The Run Allows for Car Choices Despite Story Focus

Need for Speed: The Run, the upcoming racing game from Black Box and Electronic Arts, will offer players the ability to choose from a variety of cars during their races, despite the fact that the story of the title emphasizes the tied hands of Jack, the main character.

The Need for Speed franchise has been going through a great period lately, with the well-received simulator-style NFS: Shift and Shift 2 Unleashed, not to mention the arcade-like Hot Pursuit.

Now, the series is coming back to story-focused games, with the Black Box studio working on NFS: The Run, which is out this November on a variety of platforms.

Up until now, we saw quite a few gameplay videos and even posted our hands-on impressions from Gamescom 2011. Fresh details have now appeared about the game and how Jack will be able to choose from a variety of supercars throughout the story.

While The Run follows Jack as he engages in an illegal race across the USA, this doesn't mean he won't be able to change cars. There's just one exception, at the end of the cinematic sequence we saw revealed at E3. Besides that, NFS: The Run producer Jason DeLong told IGN that it's up to the player what car the hero races.

"Throughout The Run there's key story moments where Jack is actually forced out of his car and has to get another car, but for every one of those – with the exception of the one in Chicago – it's a choice. At the beginning of the game, Jack knows he's entering the race. He goes to his garage, he has cars to choose from. Even in Chicago, that [sequence] ends with him upside down on the train tracks in the cop car, so that car was gone. Without giving out too much of the story, let's just say Jack finds his way to another location where there are multiple cars to choose from, before he goes on again."

"Everyone has a favorite type of car or manufacturer, so we wanted to make sure we provided some variety in The Run for that, and then of course we have other modes and our online modes where there's obviously the full car slate of everything you've unlocked."

Back in the early days, NFS games and other racing titles only offered players the ability to use certain vehicles, bought with in-game cash. In recent years, however, many titles, including Hot Pursuit, scrapped this annoying feature altogether and offered cars for free, with players choosing what they liked before each race.

Need for Speed: The Run is out on November 15 on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In order to drum up even more excitement about the variety of cars included, EA has also deployed a special trailer focusing on the all-new Porsche 911 Carrera S, which you can check out below.