Shift 2 Unleashed

Shift 2 Unleashed

Developers
	Slightly Mad Studios
Publishers
	Electronic Arts
Engines
	Madness Engine
Release dates
Windows	March 29, 2011
Reception
Metacritic	84
IGDB	81
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person, Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Racing
Vehicles	Automobile, Track racing
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary
Series	Need for Speed: Shift, Need for Speed

Need for Speed: Shift
Subseries of Need for Speed
Need for Speed: Shift	2009
Shift 2 Unleashed	2011

Shift 2 Unleashed is a singleplayer and multiplayer racing game developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published by Electronic Arts. It is the seventeenth entry in the Need for Speed series and the second entry in the Need for Speed: Shift duology.

Just like the first game, Shift 2 focuses on on closed-circuit racing and have realistic car handling model. The game also added in-helmet camera, night-time racing, and the Autolog feature.

It was released in North America on March 29, 2011, followed by Europe on March 31, 2011.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
(unavailable)
Games for Windows Marketplace (unavailable)
EA app (unavailable)
Steam (unavailable)		Includes free DLC pack. Redeemable on Origin as well.

Delisted from online stores on May 31, 2021.

All versions require TAGES Solidshield DRM with 5 machine activation limit. Online activation through EA servers is required.

Version differences

The Limited Edition contains 3 exclusive cars, as well as 40 additional career events.

Content of the Limited Edition can't be activated anymore due to the activation service closure.
See this to restore exclusive content in the Steam release.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
PC DLC Pack	Free download containing the Legends Pack and the Speedhunters Pack, archived by EA here.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Skip intro videos[citation needed]
Go to <path-to-game>\Movies\ Replace the original BootFlow_in.bik and BootFlow_out.bik with the ones from this mod.

Game data

General settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED\graphicsconfig.xml
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/47920/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED\profiles\default.sav
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/47920/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
EA app
OneDrive		Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics settings

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Can be adjusted via Racer_S Camera Control utility.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Up to 16x.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		MSAA and MLAA. Avoid using MLAA as it's performed on CPU.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)
Color blind mode		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Input

Control settings

Advanced Control settings

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		The default mapped controls will be used for Drag and Standing Mile mode and will not use the user-mapped controls.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Keyboard and mouse prompts
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion		Option in "Advanced Control" Settings.

Controller types

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers		Racing wheels are supported.
Button prompts

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Input prompt override
Haptic feedback
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Master, Vehicle, Sound Effects, Speech, Music and Online Player Mute available.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				Choice between metric and imperial measurements
Simplified Chinese				Translation by 3DM team
Czech				Fan - 1
French
German
Italian
Spanish
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese				Fan translation by GameVicio and Tribo Gamer; download.
Russian

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
Local play
LAN play
Online play		Game servers were shut down on August 31, 2021.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Mods

Dr.Pepper challenge unlocker

WARNING: This mod will unlock ALL races in Career mode breaking progression if you have yet to unlock through gameplay. The Chevrolet Camaro SS Dr. Pepper Edition is also now available for purchase in the car lot. NFS-planet 3rd party download link

Issues unresolved

Intermittent flickering in cockpit view on Nvidia Maxwell GPUs

Players have reported an issue with Nvidia's Maxwell video cards where a single black frame is rendered at random moments when using cockpit view.

Force feedback issues

Tyre grip is missing.

Issues fixed

A poster on NoGripRacing details numerous fixes for a number of problems here, and is used as a source for some of the fixes below.

Crash to desktop when loading a race

Install NVIDIA PhysX
Go to <path-to-game>\install\PhysX\ Run the PhysX_SystemSoftware.exe installer Restart the computer.

Settings do not save

To save settings, use the RIGHT ⇧ Shift key. The career mode tutorial may revert controller and keyboard settings changes. The career mode tutorial will set the car to AUTOMATIC but will stay changed to MANUAL if saved after the tutorial.

Low graphics quality

Force anisotropic filtering to 16x through the graphics card's driver.

Cars feel like "floating"

This is mostly caused by the default settings being very loose. See this thread for how to tweak them for more responsive handling.

Steering input lag

Input lag where the car doesn't respond for a significant amount of time while steering can be resolved by changing the DampeningEnabled="1" string to "0" in vehicleset_pc_custom_pad.xml and re-selecting the "Custom" controller scheme in game.

This should work with the custom wheel file as well. Disable 'Allow Game To Adjust Settings' in the Logitech Profiler.

Low frame-rates in Origin version

Disable Origin In-Game[citation needed]
In Origin, click the "Origin" menu in the upper left, then select "Application Settings" Go to the "Origin In-Game" tab Disable the option "Enable Origin In-Game" via the radio-button

Anti-aliasing not working

Anti-aliasing in the game is software-based, and makes the 'classic' anti-aliasing not work. With ATI cards, the Morphological Filtering can be enabled in the driver, but at the cost of a significant performance drop.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX
Audio	FMOD	API v4.32 (The soundbanks where the music stored was encrypted, while the sound effects one isn't.)
Cutscenes	Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum		Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP SP3		Vista SP2, 7
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4 GHz		Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 GHz AMD Phenom 8400 Triple-Core
System memory (RAM)	2 GB		3 GB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	7 GB		10 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 8 Series ATI Radeon HD3000 Series 256 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible Shader model 3.0 support		512 MB of VRAM