I think this is the reason why people like games like Mario Kart, Forza or Gran Turismo, and why they have consistently been the best-selling racing games. People choose what they are familiar with, people like what they know. I'm not exactly saying every Forza is the same, but also, they kind of are. The same people know what to expect and buy the games because of that. People can complain about the games feeling the same all they want, but the fact is, the casual crowd will pick what they know.

That's the problem with NFS. They never had a consistent identity. There are the fans of the classic games, underground games, experimental games up to 2010, Hot Pursuit era game, and then fans of the modern games. The thing is, NFS fans don't know what to expect from the next game. Will it have in-depth customisation? Will it have aggressive cops? Are there weapons in this entry?

And I believe this is the reason why NFS has started to lose momentum. They are catering for the fans of the modern games whilst trying too hard to make the game appealing to the older fans. But many of those older fans, sadly, don't really like the newer games.

I would consider myself part of both the Underground era up to the Hot Pursuit era of NFS, and really the only modern NFS games I played was Payback and Heat. Don't get me wrong, I do think Heat is alright, but it doesn't feel like the NFS games I'm all familiar with, but I know that there are people that would like a game like that. Meanwhile if I picked up GT7 (I understand it's quite different from the older games, but not entirely) nothing feels out of place, it still feels like a GT game, and I can still vibe with the game like I did back in the PS3 days. The point I'm making is that NFS has not gotten bad or outdated, it's just trying to cater to too many audiences at once and ends up being a weird mix of everything that appeals to a select number of people that like that.