Players earn rep from participating in pursuits, with great amounts offered during night than day. Pursuits in Palm City can take place during day or night, but the PCPD's response to a pursuit differs depending on the time period. They're tasked with shutting down street racing in Palm City, which can lead players to risk their earned rep against the police or lose their earnings in handcuffs. Racing during the night will attract the attention of a rogue police task force that patrols the streets of Palm City. During the night, players can take part in illicit street racing, which rewards REP. During the day, players can take part in sanctioned race events, which reward players with cash to spend on new cars and upgrades. Unlike Need for Speed Payback, the game does not include a 24-hour day-night cycle, but players can switch between day and night.

The in-game map features diverse geography, including mountainous areas and open fields. Need for Speed Heat is a racing game set in an open world environment called Palm City, a fictionalised version of the city Miami, Florida and its surrounding area. In February 2020, EA shifted development of the franchise back to Criterion Games-the developers of the Burnout series, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010) and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)-and reduced Ghost Games to an engineering studio for the Frostbite engine, reverting their name back to EA Gothenburg. Heat was Ghost Games' final game both for the Need for Speed franchise and as a lead developer. The game received mixed reviews from critics, who mostly found the game to be an improvement over the 2015 Need for Speed reboot and Payback but not enough to be a full return to form for the franchise. It is the twenty-fourth installment in the Need for Speed series and commemorates the series' 25th anniversary. Need for Speed Heat (stylized as NFS Heat) is a 2019 racing video game developed by Ghost Games and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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