Need For Speed Carbon

October 31, 2006RacingESRB E10+

Available on

PC macOS

Genres

Racing Simulation

Overview

About Need For Speed Carbon

Need for Speed: Carbon is an arcade-style street racing game set in an open-world city. Players compete in illegal night races across different event types, including circuits, sprints, drifting, and canyon duels on winding mountain roads, while evading police pursuits. Cars are drawn from licensed real-world models across tuner, muscle, and exotic classes, and can be heavily tuned and visually customized. A key feature is the crew system, in which players recruit AI wingmen with specialized roles to assist during races and take over rival-controlled territories.

Story setup

The player returns to Palmont City, where years earlier a major street race ended in a police ambush and they were blamed for making off with the prize money. Back in the city and hunted by a bounty hunter, the player builds a racing crew and challenges the gangs that control Palmont's neighborhoods, competing for territory while trying to learn who was really behind the setup that forced them to flee.

Reference

At a glance

Released: October 31, 2006
Platforms: PC, macOS
Genres: Racing, Simulation
Play modes: Single Player, Multiplayer, Split-Screen
Age rating: ESRB E10+
Time to beat: 20 hours

Media

Screenshots

Click any screenshot to view it full size.

Playtime

How long to beat

Player-reported completion times for Need For Speed Carbon.

Typical: 20hoursStory plus some extras

Playing together

Multiplayer & game modes

Need For Speed Carbon offers various play modes for different gaming experiences.

Play Modes

Single Player • Multiplayer • Split-Screen

Content

Age ratings

How rating boards around the world have classified Need For Speed Carbon. Open a board for its content descriptors.

ACBG

The content is very mild in impact

CEROB

Crime

CLASS_IND14

Violência (Violence)

ESRBE10+

Violence

PEGI12

Violence

The content of this game is suitable for persons aged 12 years and over only. It contains: Non realistic looking violence towards human characters

USK12

Also in our guides

Often listed alongside Need For Speed Carbon

Titles that appear in the same guides on this site. Grouped by where they show up, not by recommendation.

Coverage

Featured in our articles

This game appears in 1 article on this site.

Best Racing Games for Low-End PCs and Laptops

I grew up with Need for Speed. Carbon was the one I put serious hours into on PS2, and coming back to it on PC confirmed that the structured canyon-racing career holds up better than I expected. The territory system, where you take over districts by winning races from rival crews, gives the progression a rhythm that most Wanted or open-city NFS games cannot quite match. On hardware that would struggle with anything released in the last five years, Carbon runs like it was built specifically for that machine. Availability is the asterisk. It is not on Steam and EA's own storefront handling of the older catalog is inconsistent, so sourcing a legitimate copy takes a little effort. Worth it, but worth knowing.

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Game data and imagery provided by IGDB.com