Alternate Waves: An Unbound Soundtrack Mod
The first-ever soundtrack mod for NFS™ Unbound
Featuring 74 tracks from several genres and artists, custom audio mixers, and custom clothing items as a bonus.
Key-points
- Ins & Outs
Every track that plays in events has intro and outro versions edited by hand to fit the timings the vanilla tracks use, with special attention given to the intro variations.
- Hand-tuned Mixing
The mod also ships with optional, tweaked mixers for some audio events within the game. Among the key changes are modifications to how music behaves while you're jumping, using nitrous, and when dialogue is playing. The changes are very conservative so as not to mess with the effects the game tries to get going during gameplay, but it is available for those who want to let the music breathe a bit more.
- High-quality Sources
Each track featured was sourced from the highest quality available. Pretty much all of them were in lossless formats, and that quality was carried until the last step, where they're mixed down to the VBR MP3-like format the game uses at the same quality preset the vanilla tracks were exported to. No muffled MP3s downloaded off a YouTube upload from 2008 around here.
The track selection is a mix of what I like, recommendations by friends, what I've seen the community throw around as suggestions in the past, and generally just what I thought would fit the game. The main point addressed is the lack of variety in the game's vanilla soundtrack, so the main focus was to have a balanced blend of rock, metal, rap, drum & bass, and everything in between. The intensity of each track has also been accounted for, so some stuff will only play in races, some only in the garage, etc.
More Info
Just to make it clear, this is not what I think the game should've shipped with. This is more of a proof-of-concept that got too big, so there are tracks in here that would never be featured in NFS. Still, I hope I managed to get a little something for everyone's taste, and it ends up being an enjoyable experience for those who care about having music properly integrated into the game instead of relying on playing music externally.
A spreadsheet containing all the data for where and when each track plays can be found in this spreadsheet, though a simpler version is included in the preview pictures.
alternate.waves | Track List Spreadsheet @ Google Sheets
Huge thanks to Zino and Greeny from the Decals+ team for helping with testing the mod, and also HarGabt for maintaining the Frosty Editor fork for Unbound and fixing support for editing blueprints, which finally let me edit the music metadata directly.
A proper guide for modding music and other NewWaveAssets will be written and published at a later date.
Comments
pettyboi (June 15, 2025 @ 00:44)
Good soundtrack mod but I still rather listen to my NFS Unbound Spotify playlist but I highly recommend these tracks1. Kickstart My Heart by Mötley Crüe
2. Kush Coma (GTA 5 song) by Danny Brown feat. A$AP Rocky
3. R- Cali (another GTA 5 song) by A$AP Rocky
4. Throne by Bring Me The Horizon
5. 1.000.000 by Nine Inch Nails
Maybe add songs from older NFS games
zelyonka (June 14, 2025 @ 11:47)
HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PatheticPaI (June 14, 2025 @ 06:23)
HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! Now I can play Unbound without Music Volume been put to 0%.
ArthurLopes (June 13, 2025 @ 00:49)
@Guspr181 Just wanna say you're based for rocking an inFamous: Second Son profile picture