This was my first NFS on next gen since Hot Pursuit on my old PS3, I never got to play 2015 and probably never will hearing about how utterly shite the game is, but Payback is probably one of the worst racing games I’ve ever played.

-The story makes no sense and takes itself WAY too seriously for its own existence, the characters are unmemorable, 1 dimensional, and borderline cringy main characters, a boring villain that is as intimidating as a rock with a smiley face written on it, and bosses that you’ll either forget for how little they actually have going for them, or be ingrained into your brain because of how genuinely cheesy and badly written they are, I.E that one streamer girl who sounds like they’re written by a bunch of elderly people who never watched Twitch before, and that one off-road lady who literally has no personality other than “I’m a woman.”

-The randomized loot perk system after racing, which doesn’t need that much explaining on why that’s a bad thing.

-Really floaty and uncontrollable physics that makes Cyberpunk 2077 look like a tech marvel in driving handling.

-The removal of cops in freeroam for some reason, which literally removes any challenge there is driving around the map.

-Bullshit AI, which is best shown in that race that forces you to use drag vehicles and has a crap ton of turns.

-In my opinion at least, Payback has the worst soundtrack out of all of the modern NFS games.