Need For Speed Rivals
After completing the prologue, players choose a faction—Cop or Racer—to start their own tasks. Players can switch between factions at a hideout or a command post.
Roles and progression
After completing the prologue (tutorial), players choose a faction—Cop or Racer—to start their own tasks. Players can switch between factions at a hideout (Racer) or a command post (Cop). Cops can choose different mission routes for patrolling, undercover, and law enforcement.
Most of the story takes place through cutscenes, with the chosen character voicing their opinions of current events in the game. Story progression is made through completing speedlists as a racer, or assignments as a cop.
Missions
Rivals features a career progression system for both Cop and Racer. Progression is made by means of Speedlists for Racer and Assignments for Cop, which are sets of objectives which involve dangerous driving, maneuvers, and race standings. Upon completion of each set of objectives, the player levels up and unlocks new content, and is presented with another set of objectives to choose from.
Weapon system
Similar to the 2010 Hot Pursuit, players can use weapons, referred to as Pursuit Tech, to attack other players or AI cars, or otherwise defend themselves. Players can equip from two of each side's six available weapons, each of which can be enhanced, although upgrades are limited to a certain level based on the max level of the car's Pursuit Tech. Besides electrostatic field and EMP (electromagnetic pulse), which are the only weapons available to both factions, Cops can deploy shock rams, assemble roadblocks, request helicopter support, or drop spike strips, while Racers can deploy radar jammers, trigger shockwaves, drop stun mines, or activate turbo boosts.
Online system
The Autolog system, a competition-between-friends system developed by Criterion for Hot Pursuit, records the player's completion time for each event, Speedlist or Assignment. These times are posted to Speed Walls for local and global leaderboards to be compared to other players' times.
Rivals features a new social system called the AllDrive, which allows players to transition from playing alone to playing with others, described as "destroying the line between single player and multiplayer". This allows players to engage in both cooperative and competitive gameplay. The game also features a dynamic weather system, which makes "the world feel alive in a much bigger sense than any other Need for Speed game".
Vehicle modification
Rivals also takes on some gameplay features of earlier Underground titles in the franchise with cues on aesthetic vehicle personalization, such as paint jobs, decals, rims and license plates and liveries can be modified, as well as vehicle performance, and various 'Pursuit Tech' gadgets. With the exception for the Aston Martin Vanquish (and most DLC cars), all cars in the game are only available to either the Racers or the Cops.
Map and background
Need for Speed Rivals takes place in the fictional Redview County. The open world environment features a similar set-up to Most Wanted, with several jumps, speed traps, and unlockable cars, as well as shortcuts that are not shown on the map.
The map's design took heavy inspiration from multiple aspects of the American landscape, with the setting's open world map consisting of over 100 miles (160 km) of road. The north side of the map takes inspiration from Californian coastline towns like Santa Monica, the east side a northern California redwood forest and snowy mountainside based on the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the south is a rocky desert based on the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the west and central parts of the map based on contemporary rural America.