Criterion founders tease Burnout series ‘spiritual successor’

By Danny Cowan October 5, 2015

burnout spiritual successor under development — Image used with permission by copyright holder

British indie developer Three Fields Entertainment announced plans to produce a “spiritual successor” to a popular racing game series, likely hinting at a Burnout revival for modern platforms.

Studio founders Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry previously founded Burnout franchise developer Criterion Games. In a series of Twitter posts this week, Three Fields Entertainment announced that its upcoming racer will feature “Speed. Traffic. And Crashing. Lots and lots of crashing.”

The team at Three Fields later elaborated on its plans, noting that the upcoming game will be similar to the initial arcade-styled entries in the Burnout series, as opposed to the open-world approach Burnout Paradise adopted.

“To all the open world fans – we love them too,” the team noted. “But as a small team an open world game won’t be on the cards for awhile.”

Three Fields also hopes to incorporate Takedowns, a key rival-smashing mechanic introduced in 2004’s Burnout 3: Takedown and expanded in 2005’s Burnout Revenge. Both games were directed by Three Fields Entertainment co-founder Alex Ward.

Launched in 2002, the Burnout series spanned several releases for the original Xbox and PlayStation 2. The Burnout games offered high-speed, arcade-style racing challenges in addition to a “Crash Mode” that challenged players to rack up as much damage as possible in a series of multi-vehicle pileups.

The core Burnout series saw its final release with Burnout Paradise in 2008 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Burnout Paradise introduced a free-roaming element in which players discovered new races and challenges while traversing a massive open world.

Electronic Arts purchased Criterion Games in 2004, later assigning the studio to develop several entries in its Need for Speed series. The Burnout franchise last surfaced in 2011 with the digital-exclusive spinoff game Burnout Crash.

Further details regarding Three Fields Entertainment’s upcoming racer have not been announced, and a release date is not yet known.

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