In Career mode, players take on the role of an undercover police officer seeking to break up a syndicate operating within the underground street race world. In addition, Undercover includes new events such as 'Outrun' - players must overtake a rival and stay ahead of them for a period of time - and 'Highway Battle' - similar to Carbon 's 'Duel' and Underground 2 's 'Outrun' event, players attempt to stay ahead of a rival on a highway, battling against both them and local traffic, winning instantly if they pull far ahead and losing for the exact opposite - with its game modes consisting of Career, Single Event, and Multiplayer both the PlayStation 2 and Wii editions also feature a fourth mode, Challenge Series, which operates similar in function as in Most Wanted and Carbon. Racing events featured in the game include the series' standard of circuit, point-to-point, and checkpoint races, alongside the return of Police Pursuit events featured in Most Wanted and Carbon. In the game, players take part in illegal street races that focus on different styles of races, utilizing a variety of licensed real-world cars (available at the time of the game's development and release) that can be upgraded and customized with new parts, while contending with the involvement of the police in their efforts to impede the player. Gameplay of Undercover on the Nintendo DS On May 31, 2021, EA announced that the game would no longer be available for purchase in any online stores. It was later succeeded by Need for Speed: Shift in 2009, and Need for Speed: World in 2010. Upon its release, the game received mixed reviews, many of which criticized the game's difficulty setting and repetitive elements, with some editions receiving lower scores due to severe issues. Gameplay operates on the same manner as previous entries such as Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: Carbon, now including a larger selection of licensed real-world cars, and RPG-styled system in the game's main story mode. The game sees players conducting illegal street races within the fictional Tri-City Area, with the main mode's story focused on the player operating as an undercover police officer to investigate links between a criminal syndicate, stolen cars, and street racers. An edition of the game for iOS was later released on April 27, 2009.

Developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts, it was released on November 18, 2008, for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and a number of mobile phone platforms. Need for Speed: Undercover is a 2008 racing video game, and is the twelfth installment in the Need for Speed series.

Nfs undercover cars