Criterion says Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was the first entry in the series that used data from real cars

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is making its way to Switch on Nov. 13th, 2020 as Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered. Many people consider this installment to be the best in the series, and are elated to see it returning. In an interview with Eurogamer, Criterion reveals one tidbit about the title that might explain why it felt so special.

It was the first time we were using all the real data of the cars. And so we plugged all that data in, and I remember one time - I think it was with one of the Mercedes - and we were like hold on a second, this isn't reaching its top speeds. We worked out that we'd actually input the diameter of the wheels some two millimetres out. And so we made the wheels two millimetres bigger, and the sim started pumping out what the performance should have been. You have to do all those hard yards, that hard simulation stuff, and then you just layer the magic on top.