Screenshots & trailers
What players say
Why the number is what it is: aspect mentions counted across 300 sampled Steam reviews (240 positive / 60 negative), recent and most-helpful. Plain keyword counting, fully reproducible; nothing here is written by a machine.
What positive reviews talk about
- Story & writing18% mention it
- Progression & loot8% mention it
- Visuals & art4% mention it
What negative reviews complain about
- Story & writing35% mention it
- Progression & loot23% mention it
- Controls & UI10% mention it
- Bugs & crashes10% mention it
- Visuals & art8% mention it
Satisfaction by hours played
Same score, different games: see how sentiment holds up the longer people play.
Under 5h
76%
83 reviews
5-15h
84%
74 reviews
15-40h
78%
102 reviews
40-100h
85%
34 reviews
Review sentiment over time
Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.
How this score was computed
The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.
| Component | Positive | Quality (0-100) | Weight (pseudo-reviews) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press reviews (OpenCritic) | – | 60 | 60 |
| Creator reviews (2 tracked) | – | 55 | 1 |
| All-time Steam reviews | 85% | 79 | 1000 |
| Metacritic user ratings | – | – | 0 |
| Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted) | 85% | 78 | 202 |
| Calibration prior (typical game) | – | 72 | 50 |
Scoring window: last 30 days (no significant patch detected) · 300 reviews sampled · 578 total reviews in window · weighted 205.9 up / 36.6 down · computed 2h ago · full methodology →
Press & Creators reviews (107)
Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.
- 60
“Need For Speed: Payback had all the chances to become a good game, but strange physics, boring competitions, a stupid plot and rough graphics spoiled the final impression. Of course, a good soundtrack is still in place, the desert landscapes look atmospheric, but an endless grind that does not give any pleasure, discourages any desire to play further.”
read full review ↗ - 30
“Boring free-to-play grindfest which for some reason costs $60. There are much better alternatives on the market.”
read full review ↗ - 40
“The game sacrifices specificity of environment, story, and characterization so as to ensure that the car is king.”
read full review ↗ - 65
“Ultimately, Need for Speed Payback lacks charisma and identity. The game doesn't know what it wants to be and this is detrimental to the experience. It helps the player get familiar with the story, but it doesn't have any memorable characters. It leaves you with a huge map to explore, but it's full of grind and unfair progression. There are fun elements, like the sharp driving and the fun of completing the missions, but that's really all there is to it.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“Need for Speed Payback is a decent racing game held back by a weak story, grinding, and micro-transactions. If you can live with these elements, you will have a lot of fun in this game.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“Despite the cringey dialogue and general over arcing storyline, Need for Speed Payback is a pretty enthralling 4 wheeled crusade. It may contradict itself by featuring linear, checkpoint ridden roads on a wide open, treacherous continent, but the races themselves are slick, chaotic and heart pounding for the most part, and with numerous secondary objectives and challenges to complete, there’s certainly a lot to keep you and your car occupied.”
read full review ↗ - 68
“Get past some of the poor design ideas, which feels more like an EA intervention than anything else, and there’s a really solid, fun arcade racing game here that’s highly enjoyable.”
read full review ↗ - 30
“Need for Speed Payback is a real-world example of microtransactions gone wrong. As an open world racer, the game's inoffensively average, but when paired with its bafflingly bad progression system, it's frankly an embarrassment. It's scary to think that publishers are quite literally sabotaging their own games in pursuit of a bonus buck or two these days.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“Arcade racing is what has defined Need for Speed since its creation, and Payback is not an exception to this rule. However, due unbalanced progression and the irrelevant single player campaign, this new iteration seem rather uninspired and lackluster.”
read full review ↗ - 55
“The driving and actual gameplay is still fun and well done. There's actually a very good open world racing game in here, it's just bogged down by level progression and needless grinding that is only there to extend the gameplay time and to get people to spend real money to potentially get upgrades for the cars.”
read full review ↗ - 59
“Need for Speed Payback is a game with some good ideas and more than a few bad ways of executing them. The story gives you a good basis for a non-traditional racing game, and aping Forza Horizon isn't a bad way to go about it. The handling is purely arcade in style and fun to play, and the environments can give you some pretty good racing areas. However, even if you discount how bad the story plays out, you'll hate the fact that you'll never get to play the more exciting segments. Worse, the promotion of grinding makes the game drag on far longer than it should, making you want to put it away without even finishing the campaign, let alone try the multiplayer. It isn't the worst racer on the platform by any means, but it's certainly not worthy of the full asking price.”
read full review ↗ - 50
“Need for Speed Payback just reuses its predecessors' formula. Despite having a very weak storyline, it kept me entertained for a few hours with its varied tests and missions.”
read full review ↗
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Invision Community
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ZTGD
Worth Playing
The Game is a Lie…and 95 more tracked reviews.
Patch history
No patch announcements found on Steam yet.