No New Burnout Games Are Currently In the Works at Criterion

This news may be upsetting for all of you Burnout fans out there…

Kieran Crimmins, creative director of Need for Speed Unbound, recently discussed the Burnout series in an interview with Eurogamer. Crimmins stated that a new Burnout is “not the next game they’re working on,” confirming that Criterion Games has no immediate intentions to return to the franchise. Despite this, Crimmins stated his desire to work on a new game and claimed that the studio has “the most passion” for Need for Speed and Burnout.

For all of Criterion’s early 2000s success with the Burnout series, the studio has clearly prioritized the Need for Speed series in recent years. Burnout Paradise, the series’ previous main installment, was released in 2009 and received positive reviews. On the flip side, the first Need for Speed game by Criterion, Hot Pursuit, was released in 2010, and the original series of Burnout games spanned from 2001 to 2011.

What this suggests is that the once-legendary Burnout series may be coming to an end, though it may not be completely out of line to hold out hope. In retrospect, Criterion’s shift in emphasis to the Need for Speed series may not have been such a bad thing. Now that NFS Unbound is out, it’s clear that the developers have invested a lot of time and energy into it, and they plan to keep doing so for a long time.

It’s worth noting that Cummins also said that Burnout’s fresh approach to racing will be a welcome addition to modern video games. At the end of the interview, he mentioned that he hopes to be involved in the development of a new Burnout game and that Criterion plans to increase its staff in order to begin development on such a game if current projects go according to plan. 

Let us know what you think in the comments section below. There’s no denying that the Burnout series has a massive fanbase, which raises the question of whether or not Criterion should focus only on the Need for Speed franchise or explore the potential of the Burnout series too.