Developers who’ve been in the game industry for a long time and who have long-running franchises, like Criterion games and their well-known Burnout series, don’t usually do sudden direction changes.
They most likely fear a drop in quality and alienation of established fans, which is why we appreciate what Criterion is doing, even if they’re moving away from pure car games.
What they’ve announced is that they will be pouring all of their Burnout expertise into a kind of stuntman/daredevil kind of first-person action/driving game. Sounds a bit like a more spectacular (and first-person) variant of the open world game Just Cause (2), with a hint of Mirror’s Edge.
You’ll still get to drive various motorized vehicles, like cars, buggies, ATVs, boats, planes and more, as well as dropping from the sky via wing suit or parachute, then landing into one of the above, driving on and keeping the momentum going…
As you’ll see from the video posted below, the development work is still really-really early, though the team behind it seems eager to move away from Burnout and do something else. Enthusiasm is great to have when developing a game, as it spurs each developer on to fuel their work with passion (for the finished product); you can very easily tell when playing any game just how enthusiastic everybody was when the game was made…
Two things that will stay the same with this upcoming title from Criterion are the crashes which we’ve been promised will be even more spectacular than those in Burnout, as well as the emphasis on fun over realism.
By Andrei Nedelea
VIDEO