Although the studio has been busy with Need For Speed (the latest installment, Need For Speed Unbound, is available to play today with the Palace Edition or if you have an EA Play Pro subscription), the past should not be forgotten.

Criterion Games became the developer of the Need For Speed franchise after EA Gothenburg became Ghost Games (and they reverted to being a support studio under their original name). Still, they did make a big splash in the past with Burnout. In those games, the emphasis was on getting as big collisions and dangerous driving as possible. (You could also imagine being the perpetrator of the big crashes and explosions seen in Cobra 11.)

In an interview with Eurogamer, Kieran Crimmins, creative director at Criterion, confirmed that the team is keen to work on this IP, but has no plans to do so at the moment. Crimmins is hopeful that they will have the opportunity to develop a new Burnout in the future: “It’s not something we’re looking at doing now… But if you’re talking about the two games the studio has the most passion for, they’re Need For Speed and Burnout. So I guess I’m saying I would love to do that. And I hope that if everything goes well with these games and we can expand the team, we can make one of those. It’s not in the immediate plans or anything like that, but man, it’d be entertaining,” Crimmins said.

The first Burnout was released in November 2001 for PS2, followed by GameCube and Xbox in late April/early May 2002. At the time, it was published by Acclaim, and even then, the focus was on rushing into traffic at high speeds and causing as much chaos on the roads as possible. The sequel, Burnout 2: Point of Impact, followed in October 2002 for PS2, followed by for GameCube in April 2003 and Xbox in May, and then in September 2004, perhaps the best in the series, Burnout 3: Takedown arrived for PS2 and Xbox, published by Electronic Arts. Burnout Revenge followed for PS2 and Xbox in September 2005, followed by the Xbox 360 in March 2006, but in 2005, the PSP (September) and DS (November/December) got Burnout Legends. In March 2007, Burnout Dominator came to PS2, and PSP (the latter received it in April in a few regions), followed by Burnout Paradise for PS3 and X360 in 2008, PC in 2009 (with re-releases for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch), and in 2011/12 the series came to a somewhat disappointing end with Burnout Crash! (PSN, XBLA, iOS, the latter released ten years ago).

It’s time for something new.

Source: PSU