While many of the racing events feature those used in previous entries in the games, particularly the Underground set of games, some events - Drifting, Street X, Underground Racing League tournaments and Outrun - are absent from Most Wanted, and replaced with two new ones. The first event is "Tollbooth", a checkpoint-styled solo race, in which players must hit a set of checkpoints, each one within a set amount of time; reaching a checkpoint quickly adds the time left over to the timer for the next checkpoint. The second event is "Speedtrap", in which players compete in a competitive checkpoint race, and must hit each checkpoint at their fastest speed; upon crossing the finishing line, each checkpoint's total speed is totalled together to determine the winner.
The game's selection of licensed real-world cars vary in performances in three categories - Top Speed, Handling, and Acceleration - with each car assigned to a categories that focuses on a generalised performance category - Exotic, focused on Top Speed; Muscle, focused on Acceleration; Tuner, focused on Handling. The game features a selection of stock cars to choose from, each of which can be modified during the game's main mode with upgrades to enhance it performance and visual appearance. Customization of the car's appearance is limited - while some elements that were possible in previous game were removed, other received minor changes such as players being able to make use of whole body kits on cars, the use of only one vinyl for the vehicle, and paint colors being limited to the car's main body. Additional cars are also available for the player to use - most require for them to be acquired from the game's Blacklist Racers, while others are bonuses available from completing challenges; a number of others available in the game are exclusives added in by the Black Edition version of the game. Police cars cannot be driven in the game, except during special events with the game's Challenge Series mode. Most Wanted, like the Underground series, avoids the use of major vehicle damage on all racing models, with only scratched paint and heavily cracked windscreens constituting the whole of the racers' damage modeling.
During races and the game's Career mode, players can make use of Nitrous Boosts to help give them an edge against opponents. Unlike in Underground, which first introduced the gameplay mechanic, Nitrous Boosts recharge over time, thus allowing player to re-use when needed. Players can also use a second ability to help out in tough situations called "Speedbreaker" - when used, the ability slows down time (similar to bullet time), induces drifting and momentarily increase the weight of the player's vehicle to make it harder to be pushed around, thus allowing players to maneuver their vehicle out of a difficult situation.
Police Pursuit
While the concept of players being engaged by police was first introduced in Hot Pursuit 2, the development of Most Wanted saw the gameplay mechanic enhanced and firmly introduced into the series through the employment of a complex system. When players become engaged in a police pursuit, usually from conducting a traffic offence (referred to as "Infractions" in the game) in sight of a police unit (such as speeding), their aim at this point is to escape from the pursuit by either evading or taking out pursuing vehicles. The game's on-screen HUD is modified during a pursuit, including highlighting pursuing police units on the mini-map, displaying the vehicle's heat level, and adding a Pursuit bar at the bottom detailing the number of police units in the pursuit, how many have been evaded, and how many have been taken out. The pursuit system calculates how the police handle the player via the heat level accumulated against the player's current car. Heat accumulates from committing offences and continually evading capture by the police, with higher levels of heat causing the police to be more aggressive, from employing additional tactics and tools (such as roadblocks, spike strips, and police helicopters), to involving stronger, faster police cars such as police SUVs and Federal units. If a player has only one car actively pursuing them, reinforcements may be called in and arrive after a period of time.
Players can lose the police through skilful driving, making use of their special abilities, ramming pursuing vehicles and utilizing "Pursuit Breakers" - environmental traps, highlighted on the mini-map, which when triggered cause a certain number of police vehicles to be taken out of action, such as smashing through a gas station. Evading and losing the police - either by disabling/immobilizing vehicles, gaining some distance from pursuers, or a combination of both - does not end a pursuit, once there are no more active vehicles. Instead, the player enters a "cooldown" period when this happens, which pauses the pursuit (and any reinforcements being called in), in which they must hide and avoid being spotted by police for a period of time. The length of time for this period is longer at higher levels of heat, but can be decreased significantly if the player reaches and hides in special concealment spots around the game's setting, which are marked on the mini-map during this phase and place them out of sight of police units. A pursuit fully ends when the player successfully escapes the police, or is overwhelmed and trapped, and thus "busted" as a result.
Career Mode
In the game's main mode, the objective is to race against each of the setting's major street racers (or Blacklist Racer) and defeat them. Initially, players begin by completing a tutorial sequence of events to ease players into the game, whereupon they must choose a car to use for the rest of the game. The selection available is limited, but more become available as the player defeats each Blacklist racer, including better performance upgrades for these, with players able to sell any car acquired at any time during the game - cars can be bought at car lots, while upgrades and customization parts can be bought at garages. Events in this mode are divided into two categories - Racing events, and Milestones. While Racing events focus on the game's main series of racing events which earns money when won, Milestones focus on completing specific objectives, most of which usually involve being involved in a police pursuit and raising the player's Bounty - a form of currency detailing how much trouble the player has caused for the police in the game's setting, based on the number of offences and damage to property they had caused. An example of a Milestone can be the player being required to enter a police pursuit and then attempting to escape it within a set amount of time.
