Need for Speed: Underground

Need for Speed: Underground is a 2003 racing video game and the seventh installment in the Need for Speed series. It rebooted the franchise, ignoring previous Need for Speed games that featured sports cars and…

77 17 November 2003

Racing

Need for Speed: Underground is a racing developed by EA Black Box, released 17 November 2003 on Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC (Microsoft Windows). The main story takes about 10 hrs to finish.

Verified 15 Oct 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Need for Speed: Underground is

Need for Speed: Underground is a racing game developed by EA Black Box and released in 2003. It was published by Electronic Arts. It is available on Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC (Microsoft Windows). It runs on EAGL.

The premise, in the publisher's words

The player arrives in Olympic City as an unknown street racer, guided by a contact named Samantha who introduces them to the local illegal racing scene. As they climb through the ranks by defeating circuit, drag, and drift specialists, they attract the attention of The Eastsiders, a dominant racing crew led by the city's top underground racer, Eddie. Eddie dismisses the newcomer and forces them to race Samantha to continue climbing, a decision that fractures their friendship. After working their way to the top of every racing board and reclaiming Samantha's stolen car from a rival mechanic, the player confronts Eddie and defeats him, only to face a final challenge from an unidentified…

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a first person perspective. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component. Available modes: Multiplayer, Single player and Split screen.

Where it sits in the Need for Speed series

Need for Speed: Underground is the 12th of 84 entries we hold in the Need for Speed series. The next entry was Need for Speed: Underground in 2003. Its critic score of 77 is 3 points above the series average of 74. The highest-rated entry is Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - Limited Edition at 92.

See all 84 Need for Speed games in release order →

How it was received

Need for Speed: Underground holds a critic score of 77 out of 100. That places it above 65% of the 1,168 rated racing games in our database, which average 68. Games released in 2003 averaged 69, so it scored 8 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 80, across 836 votes.

How long it takes, and what that costs

The main story runs about 10 hrs.

What it launched against

Need for Speed: Underground launched on 17 November 2003, within three weeks of Call of Duty, Beyond Good & Evil, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom. All of them reviewed better.

Released around the same time: Call of Duty, Beyond Good & Evil, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Need for Speed: Underground yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

Know one? Send it in and we will test it →