The Prologue in the Story mode of Need for Speed: Unbound takes place two years prior to the player's first week working towards the Grand.
Prologue[]
Character[]
The player can select a model to use as the avatar for their character. Once selected, they can customise their avatar with hair, clothing, and poses.
Starter Car[]
The player can choose one of three starter cars: the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T, 1988 Lamborghini Countach, or 1998 Nissan Silvia K's.
Once selected, the player and Yaz will need to drive their chosen car to Rydell's Rydes. Along the way, they'll meet up with a group of street racers and encounter the Lakeshore Police Department.
Day 1[]
Rydell's Rydes[]
The player and Yaz have spent the summer in Rydell's Rydes working on the starter car and turned it into a their new custom car. With Rydell's garage fulling up with customer cars, the player and Yaz want to take their custom car out on the streets of Lakeshore to make a name for the garage.
"Factory Record"[]
They take their custom car to a meetup location in the Cyrill Heights district, much to Rydell's displeasure with their choice of location, but Yaz wants their custom car to help them gain the right attention.
After finishing the event, Yaz feels the custom car needs more style and tells the player to drive back to Rydell's Rydes. As they're returning to the garage, Yaz says she's got ambition to run the meetups in Lakeshore and doesn't want to stay in the garage.
At the garage, the player can equip a new body kit to their custom car.
"Shopping Spree"[]
Yaz wants to take the custom car to the meetup location in Cyrill Heights district again except to take on the night-time competition, even though the police have begun patrols following their daytime race.
With only a limited amount of cash, the player and Yaz can only enter the "Shopping Spree" event.
During the event, the LPD takes notice of the street racers, giving the player and Yaz more to content with, as well as a pursuit to evade after the race.
After evading the police, Yaz asks the player to go back to the meetup to compete in the "Straight Fire" event, but they can choose to return to Rydell's Rydes. Whilst driving around, Yaz says that she's thinking she can make something of herself after seeing all the cars Rydell has built.
On the way back to Rydell's garage, Yaz gets a message from Rydell says he's left the keys to all the client cars for her to work on.
Day 2[]
Yaz has worked all night on three client cars and Rydell notices she's taken shortcuts and confronts her on it, but she quickly gets defensive and feels underappreciated.
"Hammer Time"[]
Yaz calls the player to ask them to pick up a friend of hers. They accept and head over to pick up her friend in Palemore.
En route, Yaz calls the player to vent about Rydell's comments on her work and the player tries to explain the he appreciates her work.
Upon picking up Yaz's friend, the player has to chauffeur the racer to a safehouse in Rosehill Drive without being pursued by the police. Successfully transporting them to the safehouse will unlock it for use by the player.
Rydell calls the player from a supermarket to tell them that a client was pleased with the car Yaz worked on. The player calls Yaz to tell them they're celebrating the client liking the work she did on their car, but she isn't interested in joining them to celebrate.
"Buena Vista"[]
The player is given a meetup location at the Kennedy Test Track to earn cash for the custom car in the "Buena Vista" event.
After completing the event, the player has to return to their safehouse in Rosehill Drive.
Meetups[]
Yaz joins the player for a night-time session in their custom car. The player is given the choice of two available meetup locations.
Along the ay to the meetup, Yaz talks about her friend Alec that she has known since her time in a foster home before meeting the player, and that he might be looking for a river to help him out soon.
At the meetup, Yaz feels it's becoming more difficult to earn the buy-in fees for an event legitimately.
After completing an event, Yaz tells the player that Alec's has a major hustle she can hook them up with, and he called he for the first time in a while a few days ago after seeing them race their custom car.
The player can choose to continue racing or end the session by entering a safehouse.
Day 3[]
Yaz says that Alec will be at tonight's meetup and she's looking to impress him with their custom car.
Rydell says the garage is gaining a positive reputation and they're getting more clients. Yaz isn't interested in what Rydell has to say, but he quickly points out that her and the player's work for the garage has certainly helped get it there. He also feels that garage is a family as well as a business, although Yaz still expresses she's underappreciated.
The Hustle[]
The player and Yaz take their newly built custom car to a meetup location in the University Central district, hoping to test their new car in a few street races and earn some much needed cash.
After a night of street racing and earning cash with Yaz, they head back to Rydell's garage in Douglas Park, although Yaz gets a call from Alec on the way back to the garage and he needs a custom car delivered. Yaz accepts the job and the player is tasked with picking up and delivering the car.
They arrive at the pick up location for the car with the player getting behind the wheel of the car Alec wants delivered and leaving Yaz taking their custom car back to Rydell's garage. Upon delivering the car to the drop off location in Cyrill Heights, the player calls Yaz but her call goes straight to voice mail and they receive a message that the garage's alarm has been tripped. fearing the worst, they head back to the garage in the delivery car.
As the player returns to Rydell's garage, they find all of the custom cars being stolen from the garage as Rydell dives out of the way of multiple cars fleeing through the opened shutters. The player tries to help him up but the delivery car is also stolen behind their back.
Yaz arrives to find Rydell on the ground and the player panicking around him. She protests her innocence - to which the player attempts to corroborate - but Rydell presses her further to find out who stole all the cars from his garage. She leaves the player and Rydell with nothing but an empty garage, having also taken the custom car.
2 Years Later[]
Rydell's Rydes[]
Two years after Yaz's heist, Rudell's Rydes is barely making enough money to stay in business but the player has stuck by Rydell, taking any work to keep the garage open; even changing oil for food.
With business being slow and Rydell not picking up his phone, the player decides to close the garage early and try to earn extra cash through some deliveries with Rydell's 1993 Nissan Skyline GT-R V·Spec. They pick up Tess in the Palemore district.
Take Tess to the Meetup[]
Whilst taking her to a Meetup location, Tess reveals that the street racing scene in Lakeshore is about to get a major shakeup but doesn't elude any further.
Arriving at the Meetup, the player is stunned to see so many racers in one place. As they take in the gathering of racers, a familiar custom car rips into the scene driven by an old friend: Yaz. It's quickly revealed that Yaz is behind the resurgence of street racing in Lakeshore through her big cash prize for winning the Grand.
She throws down the three qualifiers for entry into the Grand: one each week until the main event at the end of the fourth week, but her speech is cut short by the sound of nearing police sirens and the scene quickly disperses, leaving Tess in need of a quick getaway from the player.
Lose the Cops[]
The player and Tess weren't quick enough to slip out before the cops arrived and have to escape a pursuit before they can take Tess to meet Rydell. Whilst en route, the player explains that Yaz was driving their car.
Take Tess to meet Rydell[]
The player arrives at Rydell's garage with Tess to tell him about Yaz and the custom car, but he's already brandishing a baseball bat having been alerting by the alarm being triggered and expecting the worst. He induces himself to Tess with the bat pointed at her.
Although Rydell isn't trusting of Tess, the player tells him that they've just seen Yaz with the custom car and that she's putting on a high stakes event in Lakeshore. They want Rydell to let them use his garage to take her on and beat her, but he doesn't see any point in trying until Tess jumps in.
Tess reveals that she went to the meetup to find a street racer and was impressed by how the player handled the police. In fact, she was so impressed that she's willing to invest in Rydell's Rydes and make the connections they need to take on the Grand.
Rydell eventually accepts her offer and they take a look at the custom cars he has in the back.