Last update: February 22, 2025
This is a Research-style post – as I go through more games, I will keep updating it with new findings.
Loyalty career bonuses
Most games from the Black Box era grant a cash bonus if saves from the previous games are found. However, online information about this feature is incomplete, and games themselves have some bugs and leftovers related to that.
NFS Most Wanted (including Black Edition)
$10.000 is awarded if a save from NFS Underground 2 is found. On the PS2, the game checks for the following set of serials depending on the current build configuration:
SLES-52725in the European build.SLUS-21065in the American build.SLPM-65766in the Japanese build. Seems like Sha-Do Underground 2 does not give bonuses, unless this has been specifically addressed in the Japanese releases.SLKA-25241in the Korean build.SLAJ-25054in the Asian build.
NFS Carbon (including Collector’s Edition)
$10.000 is awarded if a save from NFS Most Wanted is found. On the PS2 (other platforms unconfirmed), this feature has a bug – by default,
this feature only works with base Most Wanted saves, as the NTSC-U versions check for Most Wanted Black Edition using a wrong serial (SLAJ-25075),
while PAL-E versions do not include a BE serial at all!
I submitted a patch to the PCSX2 patch database to fix this.
The game also has a function to list Underground 2 saves that uses the same list of serials as Most Wanted, so it may have been planned to grant bonuses for either UG2 or MW saves. However, those remain unused, either intentionally or through an oversight.
NFS ProStreet
Carbon’s bug has been fixed in NTSC-U (but not PAL), and the game (at least in the old-gen releases) grants the player 3 Repair Markers and 1 Totalled Marker when saves from any of the following games are found:
- NFS Most Wanted
- NFS Most Wanted Black Edition (fixed in the PAL release with my above fix)
- NFS Carbon
- NFS Carbon Collector’s Edition
Once again, the game can detect Underground 2 saves, but this functionality remains unused.
This feature has a caveat – creating a new profile and starting the career through the START option will NOT grant you loyalty bonuses. You must start a new career through the NEW CAREER option.
NFS Undercover (PS2)
Exient’s PS2/Wii version of NFS Undercover is NFS Carbon in disguise, and so the code carries over all the checks from Carbon (including a wrong serial for MW Black Edition). However, these go unused, and the game grants no loyalty bonuses at all.
Post changelog
- February 22, 2025 – initial version. Later edited to clarify missing MW Black Edition serials in PAL releases of Carbon and ProStreet.