Our hands-on experience with Need for Speed Mobile

Welcome back to our final entry into our coverage going over our experience at Apple’s gaming showcase last month, where we got hands-on with some upcoming titles slated to hit iOS and the Apple Arcade. Be sure to check out our previous stories covering Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Vampire Survivors+ to stay up to date on other upcoming Apple and iOS releases. This time around, we’re getting into the upcoming North American release of Need for Speed Mobile from EA, which is gearing up to drop for iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 this fall.

What is Need for Speed Mobile?

The open road in the palm of your hand

Need for Speed Mobile (which also goes as Need for Speed: Assemble in China) runs on Unreal Engine 4, and is similar in a lot of ways to previous Need for Speed titles, with plenty of races, time trials, and events, but with the added twist of an online open world that other drivers will be tearing up along with you. The game launched overseas in China last month after three years of development that saw EA and mobile game giant Tencent teaming up (specifically TiMi Studio Group, one of Tencent’s subsidiaries), working to make a polished open-world racing game that takes a page out of the MMO book.

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NFS Mobile is super smooth on both iPhone and iPad

MMO-Lite done right

I had a chance to sit down with Dan Zhao, a Product Director at EA, who guided me through the game and politely cheered me on as I whiffed a handful of online races. The game was running on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, but since it was developed for iOS 18, it’ll be able to run on at least the X series iPhones and up. I was also playing the Chinese version of the game, with/against players in China, but the US version should look and play more or less the same.

First off, I got a chance to customize my character and their outfit, and pick my favorite car which you can see above (I’m a big fan of old-school Japanese Hondas and Toyotas so I went with something in that vein), which gave me an idea of how in-depth the character customization options were, a big (and important) staple in the MMO/MMO-Lite genres. In-game events and activities range from PvP track racing, where you can test your drifting skills, to cop chases with other players, which can all be naturally accessed by traversing the open world. The demo ended with me taking on a couple of track races where I had a chance to really get a feel for the bread and butter of the Need for Speed experience (which felt great on the iPhone), and while Dan was pleasantly surprised by my drifting skills (and I didn’t place last), I definitely need some more practice.

After a month of success over in China, Need for Speed Mobile will hit the States this fall for Apple devices running iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, and will also feature Personalized Spatial Audio, boasting reduced audio latency for 2nd gen AirPods Pro users and providing a more immersive racing experience in the palm of your hand.

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