Ghost Games is releasing update 1.5 for Need for Speed Heat today, which adds some festive themed vanity items, the Polestar Hero Edition as an unlockable for completing the story, quick routing so you can get to safe houses and garages faster, and speedwalls to sprint, circuit, and off-road races so you can check which of your friends is the fastest to attempt to overtake them.

There are some other changes including more cops at night in Palm City, frame rate drops should be fewer in number, texture pop-in has been fixed in some areas, and the game should no longer get stuck when promoting crew members. The full list of changes can be found below.

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Need for Speed Heat update 1.5 patch note

Update Notes Quality of Life improvements Holiday Vanity Items It is the time of the year, the holiday season is approaching quickly. To help you decorate your cars in preparation for the festive time, we added some vanity items that you can purchase in the garage. You can pick up two horn sounds and two underglows, one each themed for Christmas for New Year’s, so you can drive around Palm City in seasonal style. Quick Routing You mentioned you wanted to spend less time reading the map and more time driving. Not only did we overhaul the look of the in-game phone app for better readability. We also implemented a quick routing option that you can access from the phone menu. This way, you can navigate to the nearest safe house or gas station quicker and more comfortable – and focus on shaking the cops. Speedwalls We all agree that racing is fun, but racing with friends is even better. To make it easier to see who in your crew clocked the fastest time, we are bringing Speedwalls to Sprint Races, Circuit Races and Off-road Races. For Drift Trials, you will be able to see which crew member racked up the highest score. Check who’s on top of the leaderboard for a specific track, and fine tune your ride to take their crown. Environment – Night race intros This was something you said you were missing a lot, as it sets the mood for the night races. As mentioned in the previous update notes for 1.4, we were always planning on fixing this bug and bringing the visual effects back. So we did. Fancy lights, smoke, cars, the whole package. Polestar Hero Edition Probably one of the most common questions after the release of Need for Speed Heat was about the Polestar that’s on the game cover. “But… can I drive it again?”. Joe was chased by Mercer and Shaw, the car was pushed off the bridge and it has been sitting on the bottom of the ocean since. Following this update, you can unlock the Polestar Hero Edition if you complete all the story missions: The main campaign as well as all driver stories. Just don’t drive it off a bridge again. UI When you exit or enter a garage, the “Enter Garage” prompt won’t suppress other HUD elements anymore. Which means you will see the map and speedometer as soon as you exit the garage.

As you build your rep and explore the map, you unlock activities and collectibles. We tweaked the UI to make it clearer that some of them are locked until you reach a certain Rep level.

When you’re customizing the performance parts of your car, you’ll now find a label informing you which part is currently equipped to that car / engine. It will also show how many of that specific part you own, and have a clearer call out when you’re buying a duplicate part. Other Some of you mentioned that you’re being busted while casually driving, albeit slowly – so we reduced the maximum speed that you can be busted at.

We also made a small tweak to the cop spawn mechanics in online play. Your experience should not be affected, there might just be fewer cop cars in areas without players. Bugfixes Missions When you’re returning to the garage after the first night out, the reward from the “Make a Name” mission should now be banked correctly.

You can no longer complete the daily challenge “Drift over 164 yd in a single drift” while Wayne is commandeering the vehicle during the “Let it Slide” mission.

You should no longer be able to unlock the “Warp Speed” achievement during “The Exchange” cinematic.

Added missing subtitles for Traditional Chinese during “The Exchange”.

Lucas will no longer be floating during the intro of “Breaking the Law”.

When you’re out on your first night in the game, you’ll find that the event text is now saying “Finish the event” and no longer “Finish 1st”.

In the first night mission, Ana’s marker should now be pinned to the minimap, making her easier to find if you lose her. Events Some events are marked with an exclamation point, which means they have different levels you can switch between: The base level (lower car rating recommendation) and the challenge level (higher car rating recommendation). Some events had a lower reward for the challenge level than for the base level, which is corrected by this update.

Event rewards should now reset to their original value after entering and exiting the garage.

You should no longer be able to start a Crew Time Trial while entering the garage at the same time.

When choosing “Retry” after finishing an event, the race outro should no longer play with a black screen and audio only.

It should no longer be possible for two players who are playing online to start the same solo event at the same time. It resulted in a lot of traffic and it was unclear which AI racer belonged to which race.

You should no longer be able to get stuck in an endless countdown loop when starting a drift event.

During the “Winx” and “Crazy Cowboy” races, the AI drivers will now make a specific jump instead of taking a detour.

You should no longer be able to drive your car into and become stuck in a barrier during the “Ceryneian Hind” drift trial.

The “Marlin” circuit race will now award the correct amount of Bank. It was actually paying a little more than intended.

The “Winx” High Heat event now will correctly award a volatile part.

When you receive a volatile part from a high heat event and get busted before you enter a safehouse, you will now lose that part. UI Declining an event should no longer trigger the equipped active auxiliary item.

During races, the distance between AI racers and the player that’s shown on the leaderboard should update more frequently.

We clarified the daily challenge “Drive in oncoming traffic” by changing the objective text to “Stay in oncoming traffic”. This should underline that you have to stay in oncoming traffic continuously, until the challenge is completed.

When the Racer Challenges menu shows “Congratulations, you completed racer challenges!”, you are now no longer able to select new Racer Challenges, as it was intended.

The user ID of the player that last edited a crew information category is now displayed correctly in the menu.

The description for the “Dual Turbo Charger” will no longer overlap other UI elements.

The live tuning menu will now correctly display the time it takes the car to drive the ¼ mile in the correct measurement unit: seconds.

Opening the phone menu during events should no longer cause it to overlap the race standings, but make them disappear for as long as the phone menu is open.

The “route to event” option should now be available in the in-game phone app, even if you had set a route to that event before.

The message “Text contains profanity, please change to continue” should no longer randomly pop up while in the garage.

During night race intros, text that was previously cut off the screen when the display language was set to Arabic is now showing correctly. Race types should also no longer overlap race names during race intros.

During drift trial intros, text that was previously overlapping when the display language was set to Polish is now showing correctly.

There was a line of player subtitles missing, but we found it. Cars / Garage The player character’s feet should no longer be visible underneath the car when driving a Mercedes AMG A 45.

The front bumper of the Nissan GT-R 2017 should no longer disappear when adding a splitter while a Pandem or Rocket Bunny front fender and bumper are installed.

Stock brake discs should now be available for the Mustang starter car.

The 394hp 3.8l flat 6 engine now has the proper sound when swapped into specific Porsche models.

When the car is critically damaged, the hood of the Dodge Viper SRT should no longer block your view when using the bonnet camera.

Fixed an issue where switching between specific car parts of the Porsche 718 Cayman GTS resulted in the camera showing a different scene.

The paint menu UI will no longer overlap the menu when using certain screen aspect ratios.

The unlock criteria for the Nissan 370Z Nismo in the Dealership will now correctly state “Unlocked after collecting all Street Arts”.

The “Back” button should now work correctly in the “Community Wraps” section. Visual Added some decals that were available in the NFS Heat mobile app to the game.

One of the decals was missing the option to change its color, which has now been added.

Fixed some subtitles that were out of sync with the game audio.

Reduced pop-in of textures in several instances.

The helicopter that’s flying during the introduction race should no longer be shaking.

There was a tree in the Palm City Raceway district that had no collision and you could drive straight through it. We moved it to a different spot.

The dark boxes backing the subtitles now appear correctly for each line, some of them were a bit flashy before. Performance Improved several instances where you could encounter FPS drops during specific events and missions.

Improved performance when playing on PCs that barely meet the minimum requirements.

Fixed an issue that could cause a crash during the “Apollo 10” circuit race.

Several fixes for instances where the game was crashing.

Several fixes for instances where the game was hanging.

The game should no longer hang when removing the PS4 controller via the PlayStation menu while getting busted.

The game should no longer be stuttering during “Crew Level Up” notifications.

We improved the loading process of some time trials, so the intro sequence is now shown before the event starts. Other You should now encounter more cops when circling Palm City Raceway at night.

Several fixes for instances where item synchronisation would fail.

When sharing a wrap and then losing the internet connection, the game could become stuck on a loading screen, which shouldn’t happen anymore.

When reporting another player’s Custom Wrap or License Plate, you should no longer receive an “Unknown Error” message.

On rare occasions, the game could get stuck when promoting a crew member to the recruiter role. Fixed!

There was a rare chance that the game could get stuck after accepting a party invite while customizing a car with a large number of decals. This should no longer happen.

A car parked in a specific location would spawn under the map and fly several meters in the air before falling down to the ground again. We moved it to a safer area.

There’s an invisible spot on a bridge in Cape Castille you can crash into. We removed that. Although it was entertaining to park next to the bridge and see all the AI cars bump into it.

The patch sizes are 5GB on PS4, 2.45GB on PC, and 4.5GB on Xbox One. In our review for Need for Speed Heat Nick wrote:

“Need for Speed Heat is the best the series has been in a while. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but it has a charm that reminds me of the Underground days of old. Now that’s a NfS game I can get down with.”

You can read the full Need for Speed Heat review here