Welcome to Redview County, where a street-racing rivalry between cops and racers never stops as both sides compete in an all-out war. Check out the Xbox Wire exclusive interview below with James Moaut, Lead Designer on “Need for Speed Rivals” from Ghost Games and stay tuned for more news and insights from other renown developers of the hottest and most anticipated games coming to Xbox.

What are you most excited about for developing on a new generation hardware?



The New Generation of consoles provides an exciting opportunity to explore social and connected gaming in a much broader way than ever before. This connected and social mindset behind the new generation of consoles was a big part of what inspired us to develop our new AllDrive system for “Rivals.”

How will a new generation of hardware revolutionize the future of “Need for Speed”?



The big revolution in the “Need for Speed” franchise is definitely our AllDrive, and it is how we are destroying the line between single player and multiplayer gaming, rethinking what it means to play with other people and still have your own personal career goals to complete however you see fit.

Fans were excited to see the trailer for the upcoming “Need for Speed” movie, will there be any integration between the film and gameplay experience?



I am happy to say that players will have the ability to own, personalize, upgrade and drive Aaron Paul’s signature Ford Mustang GT that he drives in the “Need for Speed” movie.

It’s exciting to see the return of Ferrari to the NFS franchise; can you tell us more about the vehicle offering from the legendary automaker?



Personally I am incredibly excited to be bringing Ferrari back to “Need for Speed” with “Rivals.” My favorite part of having Ferrari back in the game is that we have been able to offer a number of different Ferrari’s so that players will be able to drive different Ferrari’s while playing through their Cop and Racer careers.

How will “Need for Speed: Rivals” take advantage of Autolog? Can you describe the new AllDrive system?



Autolog is back in “Rivals,” and we have made a big step forward in how it works so that it ties into AllDrive and each player’s career progression. As you move through your career as either a Cop or a Racer, you will pick from different challenges to complete to continue your progression. As you do Autolog will be recording how quickly you can complete these diverse set of objects and compare them to your friends progression. So in the past where Autolog would simply allow you to compete for a single stat, such as completing the longest jump, players will now build strategies on how they can complete a list of objectives the fastest, and compete to have the best time on each stage of their career. This ties nicely into our large open world of Redview County and the AllDrive system as players will be able to decide where and how they complete a list of objectives, and possibly even team up with friends to AllDrive together and set even faster times.

The AllDrive system is much bigger than simply playing with other players in an event. AllDrive is a much large approach to online play and matchmaking, combines with serving up a single player style career and narrative, and allowing multiple players to seamlessly jump into the game world together and begin playing out their careers co-operatively or competitively.

This mean that if I were playing as a cop, working on a career goal to bust 5 racers to proceed to the next rank, I could bump into another cop in the world who is in the middle of a hot pursuit event and I could help him bust his racers together so we both benefit. While all that is happening, another player could join the world and continue playing their racer career, start a race event and begin racing. My adopted hot pursuit event might overlap with that race event creating an unexpected new series of events and each player can choose how they react to it. Race, Chase, Run, call friends for backup, anything is possible and AllDrive is continually creating this new and unscripted situations so that no two events, or careers will play the same way.

Past Rivals games have been known for their gadgetry, what are some of the new tools cops and robbers can use as advantages for the chase?



We have brought back many classic Pursuit Tech items that players are familiar with such as spike strips, helicopters, jammers and turbos, but we have also introduced new Pursuit tech as well. Among some of these new items are the defensive “Electrostatic Field” (ESF) which charges a players car with an excess of energy, making their vehicle bristle with electrical arcs. Any other vehicle unfortunate to come into contact with a player using the ESF will take a significant shock, but an active ESF can also counter a player attempting to use the lock-on EMP Pursuit Tech as well. Another exciting bit of Pursuit Tech we have developed is the “Shock Wave” & “Shock Ram”. These are similar tech, but are restricted to Racer and Cop players respectively.

The “Shock Wave” is a short range blast of compressed air that a Racer fires in all directions out from their vehicle. This powerful blast can clear spike strips off the road, push opponents away, or even punch a hole through a roadblock if used with expert timing. The Cop version of this Pursuit Tech, known as the “Shock Ram”, is a forward firing burst of compress air that is designed to barge though dense traffic in front of the Cop so they don’t lose their pursuit targets or even throw a Racer for a spin if you can hit them with a well-timed burst of the Shock Ram going into a corner, leaving them vulnerable for a combo hit with another Pursuit Tech, or just a good old-fashioned ram.

