Trivia / Need for Speed: Carbon

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• Christmas Rushed: The game's shorter story mode (and consequently how its story felt truncated) and slightly smaller city is often attributed to how the game needed to be released as the launch title for the then-new PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, along with the PC, Xbox 360 and sixth-generation console versions.
• Dawson Casting: The Prima Guide states that Nikki is 19 at the time of the player's departure from Palmont and 24 at the time of their return. Emmanuelle Vaugier actually turned 30 during development of the game.
• Deleted Scene: Some behind-the-scenes videos on the making of the game, in particular the cutscenes (available on the Collector's Edition, but compiled here) reveals that there were several shots that didn't make it to the game. These include, but are not limited to:
  • Cross backing his car onto the BMW M3 GTR (apparently the original explanation for it being totaled at the beginning of the game) and telling the player, "Whoa! Damn! My bad Romeo, my bad. You have yourself a nice night."
  • Nikki telling someone "I don't want to hear anything from you, OK?" while she's driving. (Given that the POV comes from Nikki's co-pilot, this implies that this is problably set while Nikki is driving the player to Neville's place to get their first car of the game.)
  • Darius saying in the opening cutscene "Carbon is mine", implying that the city the game takes place in was originally named "Carbon" or "Carbon City" before being named Palmont City.
  • Nikki apparently challenging the player to a friendly race at the end of the game, saying "Congratulations, I always knew you could do it. But you know there's someone else in town who hasn't quite tested you out there yet. What do you say? You and me?" It's not clear if this was intended to be an And the Adventure Continues ending or if Nikki was originally planned to be a Post-Final Boss.
• Development Gag: One of the body vinyl options is actually one of the earliest design concepts for what would become the iconic BMW M3 GTR from Most Wanted.
• Dummied Out:
  • Nikki also had a Tier 1 and Tier 2 car (which can be found in the game files) before both of them were scrapped and only uses the Ford GT instead in the final release.
  • There were also reports of unreleased cars during development, most of which are carried from Most Wanted (2005), such as the Golf GTI Mk5, Cadillac CTS, Audi A4, Porsche 911 Carrera S (997) and the Porsche 911 Turbo (996), all complete with body kits.
• Fake Nationality: While not adressed in the game itself, the game's character files describe Angie as Hispanic-American.^note Her crew being named the 21st Street Crew seems to be a reference to the 18th Street Gang, a multi-ethnic (though largely Central American and Mexican) street gang founded in Los Angeles. She's played by Danielle Kremeniuk, a Canadian actress of Ukrainian descent, and the game's behind-the-scenes videos show her getting applied something resembling Brownface for her motion capture.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: It used to be possible to buy PC version on Origin but it was delisted a long time ago. The only way to get it legally today is by buying a used retail copy from second-hand market. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions have likewise been delisted from Play Station Network and Xbox Live.
• Production Posse: Several cast members from Supernatural and Stargate SG-1 appear in Carbon, namely Tahmoh Penikett, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Danielle Kremeniuk and the late Chris Gauthier.
• Two Voices, One Character: Some characters, especially those who play the player's crew members, have different actors for their cutscenes and their voice lines during gameplay.
  • Neville is played by the late Chris Gauthier during his cutscenes, while Brian Scolaro voices him during races.
  • Sal is played by Elias Toufexis during his cutscene, while Josh Keaton voices him during races.
  • Samson is played by Noah Danby during his cutscene, while Joseph May voices him during races.
  • Yumi is played by Melody during her cutscene, while Kim Mai Guest voices her during races.
  • Kenji is a more extreme example in that Ken Kirby provides his likeliness, but Archie Kao voices him in all his scenes.
• Unspecified Role Credit: None of the voice actors in Own The City have their respective roles listed in the credits.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: For years, the city map seen in the PlayStation 2, Xbox Live and E3 preview demos of the game was believed to be a very early version of Palmont City, and was given the Fan Nickname of "Mystery City", and that said version of it would have made San Juan a proper city location as opposed of making it just a Disconnected Side Area. This is despite the fact that concept art, development portfolios and the data mining of these demos suggested otherwise. This might have stemmed due to a few factors; the main city race in the demos happen on a course located in San Juan, which was always planned to be used for tutorials, and the track layout was hastily fit into the demo map, and the demo map itself was created for previews in order to give a taste of how the territory mechanic was going to be work in the game. This might have incidentally led some people to believe that Palmont City was far different from what actually was in development.