Official portrait cover of Criterion’s 2012 Need for Speed: Most Wanted with two cars, native title and EA mark.

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Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)

Race through an open city, find cars and outrun police in Criterion’s 2012 reimagining of Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

Racing Open World

Release Date OCT 30, 2012

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Media

Silver BMW and a police car side by side on a Need for Speed: Most Wanted city road.

Red Lamborghini fills a narrow city street in the 2012 Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

White BMW races ahead of several police cars across a bridge in Most Wanted.

Yellow Porsche drives through a city road with police vehicles following in Most Wanted.

White sports car jumps through a billboard above city streets in Most Wanted.

Game Overview

Platforms

Developer / Publisher

Criterion Games Electronic Arts

Content rating

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012) is Criterion Games’ reimagining, not the separate 2005 game of the same name. Its city is a place to drive through freely between events: discover cars, try shortcuts and jumps, challenge rivals, and escape police pursuits. Rather than following a fixed circuit menu, the open-world layout lets a race connect to the streets around it. Speed Points feed the climb up the Most Wanted list.

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The game also introduced Autolog 2 social competition and multiplayer challenges at launch. Those are historical features of the release, not a promise that every online service still works now. The official gallery shows a silver BMW next to a police car, a red Lamborghini in a narrow street, a multi-car bridge pursuit, a yellow Porsche chased across a city road, and a car jumping through a billboard. They make the driving, city setting and police pressure easier to judge than a cover alone.

Electronic Arts announced the original October 30, 2012 North American release for Windows PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, iOS and Android. Criterion Games developed it and EA published it. Nintendo’s Wii U version followed later and is not counted as an original launch platform. The U.S. ESRB lists the 2012 PC/PS3/PS Vita/Xbox 360 version as E10+ (Everyone 10+) for Alcohol Reference, Comic Mischief and Violence; this entry does not establish the rating of the mobile editions.

Open-world city driving Discoverable cars and shortcuts Police pursuits and Most Wanted rivals Speed Points and original Autolog 2 competition

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