Smart Move: Need For Speed In The Hands Of Criterion

The makers of Burnout know a thing or two about intense racing.

If you want realistic racing, hugging curves and driving around on tracks built for it, then pick up a Gran Turismo title, but if you’re looking for action, metal-on-metal, explosive, adrenaline pumping racing, you might want to stick with the team that knows how to make it fun. Criterion, the folks behind the Burnout series, know about making racing fun and intense. Through the evolution from Burnout to Burnout: Paradise, they’ve learned where their strengths lie, and they’ve learned how to make a compelling experience that brings players back over and over. This is probably why EA has handed the reins over to them for their upcoming reboot of Need For Speed: Most Wanted. If you need some convincing that this game is going to be awesome, check out the gameplay video below.

Criterion proved itself to be worthy of handling the NFS name with Hot Pursuit, and now they are combining the open world aspects of Burnout Paradise with Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted to create the rebirth of the latter title. There are definitely Burnout elements seen in this title, crashing through billboards, taking down other drivers, and the all out intensity of a race in which you have to find the best path with so many people out to take you down. Most Wanted continues to show how Criterion has matured, such as including real vehicles as it did in Hot Pursuit, while not forgetting it’s intense roots.

The fact that EA is going with the exact same title as the previous game with this new team behind it, as they did for Hot Pursuit, seems to be an indication that Criterion will be the team to reinvent the NFS franchise, and it couldn’t be in better hands.