Am I the Only One Who Really Misses the Burnout Series?

I’ll be the first to admit that, despite being a very popular genre in the industry today, racing games are not typically my speed (heh, get it, speed?). I love a good kart racer every once in a while, sure, but realistic car-based games tend to do precious little for me, and they fail to hold my interest for a very long time. I’ll give them plenty of credit for their incredible technical achievements, but it’s much easier for me to tip my cap and appreciate them from afar than it is to actually pick up a controller and play them for much longer than a race or two.

Sometimes, though, arcade-based racing games can be a pretty fun ride (okay that time, the pun wasn’t intended), and one that I’ve greatly enjoyed over the years is Burnout. The work of the modern-day Need for Speed developers, Criterion Games, Burnout was a unique racing game in the sense that it placed just as much emphasis on crashing cars and pulling off death-defying stunts as it did on finishing in first place. Despite the franchise seeing some popularity in the 2000s, it only received one new game in the 2010s and, outside of a lone remaster, hasn’t been seen in over a decade. It’s about time for that to change.

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Whatever Happened To Burnout?

The Burnout franchise came from the development team at Criterion Games, a subsidiary of Criterion Software established as a way of showcasing the larger team’s newly developed RenderWare engine. At first a simple software library, it would later be retooled and given the properties of a proper game engine, one that would become very commonly used over the 2000s. With the newly established Criterion Games (then known as Criterion Studios) in play, Burnout’s first entry was released in 2000, born out of a desire to be more of a fun, arcade-styled racing game compared to realistic racers on the market such as Gran Turismo.

While the first game had crashing mechanics built into them, it wasn’t until the sequel, 2002’s Burnout 2: Point of Impact that the “Crash mode” would be implemented, where players were incentivized to crash into other cars and cause as much damage as they could. The series continued in this direction with its subsequent sequels, 2004’s Burnout 3: Takedown, 2005’s Burnout Revenge, and 2007’s Burnout Dominator, the former being considered the peak of the franchise, and even being considered the peak of the arcade racing genre as a whole.

It was around Takedown’s release that Criterion Games would be purchased by EA, and while the games did sell decently well, the franchise was seen as playing second fiddle to EA’s other racing franchise, Need for Speed. This led to 2008’s Burnout Paradise being a huge reinvention for the franchise, as it was the first title to set things in an open-world environment. Series director Alex Ward had to fight to get EA to accept his vision for the game, but fortunately came out on top with a very good game, and a commercially successful one at that. It even received a remaster on modern platforms in 2018, giving it a little extra life for those who may have missed it in 2008.

Not long after Paradise’s release, though, Criterion managed to turn a half-joking pitch for a new Need for Speed game into becoming that franchise’s primary developer. As a result, Burnout essentially became yesterday’s newspaper for EA, and it hasn’t received a wholly new game in over a decade. Following 2011’s Burnout Crash!, itself a download-only Burnout game, the Burnout Paradise remaster is the only time we’ve seen anything of Burnout. The developers would eventually transition to working on Need for Speed, and the closest we’ve gotten to a new Burnout is a spiritual successor, Dangerous Driving, from a development studio formed by former Criterion heads.

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Let The Franchise Speed Back

In some ways, Burnout has not quite left, and its ideas remain present in today’s racing games. The aforementioned Need for Speed franchise, which has bounced back and forth between different EA developers, reverted back to Criterion in the late 2010s, and the team has made two titles since. And while Need for Speed has been more known for stunt driving than collisions, modern titles like 2019’s Need for Speed: Heat and 2022’s Need for Speed: Unbound, loosely implemented some gameplay elements that were popular back in Burnout. Thus, Criterion seems to be remembering its roots, even if they have to apply those roots to a new franchise.

Still, it would be awesome to see Burnout make a return, especially as its emphasis on crashing would give it a bit of fresh flavor from all the realistic racing games we receive today. As previously mentioned, Need for Speed is more stunt-centric than Burnout, and this, combined with all the realistic racers on the market, means we don’t get many racing games centered around crashing. The racing market could stand to use some games that are a bit more destructive than your typical Forza or Gran Turismo game. and a Burnout revival could be the perfect avenue to that.

It also appears that such a comeback could be happening right now. Stellar Entertainment, the team that developed the remaster of Burnout Paradise, posted a teaser of sorts to their Twitter earlier this year, giving some hints as to what their next game would be. The tweet made references to being “rear ended” and noted that their bosses hadn’t issued any “take downs,” hinting that the next game could be a remaster of Burnout 3: Takedown.

Given that Criterion is now set to be a support developer on Battlefield (while still working on Need for Speed), it seems another team will have to be the one to handle the Burnout franchise. Even so, it would be pretty refreshing to see the Burnout franchise get another chance at success today, and whether that’s through another remaster or a wholly new game, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that this franchise comes back in full force soon.