Criterion’s Future Is Battlefield, but Don’t Forget the Burnout Heritage Within Its Walls

“We’re not present to speech astir the past”, says VP & GM of Battlefield Studios Europe Rebecka Coutaz, connected the juncture of Criterion’s 30th anniversary. Behind her connected the partition is the studio’s caller logo, which reads "Criterion: a Battlefield Studio". The connection is beauteous clear, then.

For the past decade, the Guildford-based workplace that made its sanction successful the racing abstraction has been a collaborative spouse connected EA’s Battlefield series, archetypal lending its expertise to 2016’s Battlefield 1 and aboriginal to Battlefields 5, 2042, and 6. When I inquire whether the Burnout and Need For Speed developer’s recently established scope mightiness see projects different than Battlefield, Coutaz is clear: “we are solely focused connected Battlefield.”

It seems an unusual mode to people the juncture of the studio’s 3rd decennary of operation, particularly considering the property were invited to celebrate. There are references to the studio’s past passim the time – shots of cars zooming by successful a benignant of ‘greatest hits’ montage video which opens the day; a stop-off connected the workplace circuit to contention successful a NFS arcade machine; passing notation of anterior titles that made the studio’s name. But astir of this day lawsuit is spent highlighting the processes and ethos by which a fantastically talented radical of audio, animation, and method developers present collaborates connected Battlefield 6.

EA whitethorn not beryllium talking astir the studio’s past connected this milestone anniversary, but it’s a past worthy remembering. Criterion Games’ past began successful Guildford, England successful January 1996 erstwhile it was formed by Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry arsenic a subdivision of Criterion Software. Owned by genitor institution Canon, Criterion’s intent wasn’t conscionable to merchandise games but to physique the tools and technologies that fto radical marque them. In 1993 it had released the earliest mentation of Renderware, a 3D API and graphics engine, and with the enactment of this caller games studio, the thought was to merchandise bundle that showed what Renderware could do.

There’s a wide consciousness of that successful Criterion’s earliest releases. 1996’s Scorched Planet, a Descent-like vehicular shooter taking spot crossed awesome rolling landscapes, and 1997’s Speedboat Attack and Sub Culture, some aquatic vehicular titles, enactment the prime of their 3D visuals successful the spotlight much than immoderate different element. There was a zippiness and travel to them which felt groundbreaking and reminiscent of the buttery-smooth arcade machines of the time.

1998’s motorcycle racing merchandise Redline Racer and 1999’s Trickstyle erstwhile again had the visuals and the sensation of velocity to crook heads, if not the extent to coax critics distant from the likes of WipEout oregon F-Zero X. What they did have, if you looked retired for it, was a chiseled consciousness of humour.

Redline Racer contained an easter ovum motorcycle called Sub Culture, referencing the studio’s erstwhile game, and a rideable affable dinosaur called Barnaby, among different leftfield modes of transportation. Trickstyle, meanwhile, had a ‘TRAVOLTA’ cheat codification which unlocked peculiar moves. Irreverent touches similar these would go a hallmark of the studio.

Burnout utilized Renderware to marque racing consciousness not conscionable fast, but dangerous. “

“ We are unashamedly British,” says elder shaper Danny Isaac, who began with Criterion connected 2019’s Need For Speed Heat and whose database of credits astatine EA runs backmost to 1994. “As a studio, we've got to person amusive gathering it. We've got to person our ain individuality and I've ever loved that British consciousness of humor, that adust wit that comes done successful what we do. Even erstwhile we person pugnacious days, radical inactive support their consciousness of wit arsenic we spell done it.”

While Criterion’s aboriginal output demonstrates a institution uncovering its feet, the Renderware motor was accelerated becoming a captious portion of the wider games industry. Licensed implicit 200 times to titles developed beyond Criterion’s walls, it was utilized by a wide scope of games from Rayman 2 to Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX. Rockstar would usage it to physique Grand Theft Auto 3 successful 2001, Vice City successful 2002 and San Andreas successful 2004.

When EA acquired Criterion successful 2004, determination was adjacent treatment arsenic to whether FIFA should migrate to Renderware, Isaac tells me.

By the clip of that acquisition, Criterion had firmly established itself arsenic a large subordinate successful racing crippled improvement acknowledgment to a trio of masterful, explosive, bodywork-shattering arcade racing titles: the Burnout games. Burnout utilized Renderware to marque racing consciousness not conscionable fast, but dangerous. Impactful. In its ain way, subversive. Running contrary to Gran Turismo’s stately simulation and Need For Speed’s consequence-free point-to-points, Criterion’s 2001 merchandise dared you to thrust arsenic adjacent to oncoming vehicles and obstacles arsenic imaginable successful bid to physique up your boost meter.

It’s a conception that prevails today, successful games from Forza Horizon 6 to Need For Speed Unbound, Criterion’s astir caller (and apt final) racing release. It’s go specified a cardinal portion of the genre’s cloth that adjacent explaining it feels a spot silly, similar describing the mode your controller’s trigger controls a car’s throttle.

Crashes successful Burnout are spectacular. They wreck your unlicensed car successful a hail of shattered solid and mangled bodywork, and past you’re sent backmost connected your mode with a figurative pat connected the bottommost to spell and marque much mischief.

Black took a likewise cinematic attack to the corridor gunfight arsenic the workplace had taken towards highways afloat of traffic.“

Studio cofounder and crippled manager Alex Ward said the 1976 French abbreviated movie C'était un rendez-vous and 1998’s Ronin inspired Burnout’s unsocial personality. The 2.3 cardinal players who bashed their mode done it whitethorn oregon whitethorn not person noticed those references, but they surely recovered the extremity merchandise agreeable. Burnout changed Criterion. This was nary longer a Renderware studio, but a genuine rival to Need For Speed’s spot connected the arcade racing throne.

In the midst of Criterion’s tally of Burnout releases came 2006’s Black, a raucous FPS which endeavored to “do for shooters what Burnout did for racing games”, said Alex Ward astatine the time. It took a likewise cinematic attack to the corridor gunfight arsenic the workplace had taken towards highways afloat of traffic. Shattered solid and slug casings spewing distant astatine each times, the surface shaking arsenic if struggling to incorporate each the action. Great dependable design.

Black and Burnout embody the principles that Courtaz sees arsenic cardinal to the studio’s individuality successful 2026. “ The intensity, the cinematic view, the instant reward infinitesimal that our players emotion connected Battlefield, those are truly the strengths of Criterion… and it goes each the mode backmost to Black.

“Yes, it utilized to beryllium cars and little guns. But it's the wide subordinate acquisition that we are sharing with the aforesaid intensity.”

It’s existent that a throughline is evident from those PS2 releases to present, successful the dependable design, the heightened, John Woo movie gameplay sequencing and method proficiency required to marque specified a batch of elements sing successful harmony. Whether “intensity” is simply a sufficiently sharply drawn individuality successful modern triple-A development, peculiarly of a workplace with this overmuch racing heritage, is simply a antithetic matter.

What came adjacent for the Guildford studio, arsenic the Burnout franchise rolled on, was the accomplishment of Need For Speed astatine its doors. EA’s different racing bid had been riding precocious for a decade, nailed connected for a Christmas fig 1 illustration presumption similar a world contention winner’s debut single. But aft truthful galore yearly releases, the blueprint was starting to look worn retired by 2010.

Criterion took a scalpel to the bid and trimmed distant the parts that nary longer served it. The straight-to-DVD undercover bull dramas, endearing though they were, were out. In their spot was a bare minimum of communicative setup which shifted the absorption wholly backmost connected the racing.

Criterion deployed what it had learned implicit the past decennary and utilized it to rework the conflict betwixt racers and the police, thing that had been a mainstay successful NFS for years but hadn’t ever been lavished with overmuch mechanical depth. 2010’s Hot Pursuit was a marked betterment successful that respect which joined adrenaline-pumping, high-speed chases with genuinely tactical vehicular combat. Its EMPs, jammers and spike strips gave you overmuch much to deliberation astir than the champion enactment done the adjacent corner.

The momentum kept rolling with 2012’s Need For Speed: Most Wanted, dragging the franchise distant from the unrecorded enactment plotlines, underfloor neons and crunk soundtracks that were opening to property similar earthy beverage and into much streamlined, playful, mechanically affluent territory.

From 2013, Criterion’s projects became much collaborative. Its adjacent NFS releases were associated efforts with Ghost Games, and by 2016 it was racking up ‘additional work’ credits connected the Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield franchises.

That winding way leads, via 2 much fantastic NFS releases successful 2019 and 2022, to Criterion’s existent relation arsenic – work on with the logo – a Battlefield studio.

It takes a batch of radical to marque games with the extent and standard of Battlefield. Increasingly, implicit the past 2 decades, that’s meant aggregate studios moving connected projects together. And successful the adapt-or-die marketplace conditions of the post-lockdown games industry, Criterion has proven itself highly accomplished astatine collaboration arsenic good arsenic bombastic racing games.

“ The originative imaginativeness is truly the heart,” Coutaz tells me. “It has to beryllium precise wide to the teams, nary substance if they are based successful LA, Montreal, Manchester, Guildford, what benignant of crippled we're making.” In her relation arsenic vice president and wide manager of Battlefield Studios Europe, Coutaz is “ a politician of the individuality of each studio.

“ Each workplace volition marque their champion job, and they volition thrive erstwhile I tin let them to use their individuality to the portion of the crippled that they are moving on.”

Ping disconnected a headshot successful Battlefield 6 oregon occurrence an artillery circular into brushed world and you tin spot - and perceive - however bully Criterion’s developers are astatine dependable plan today, arsenic they ever were. Squint hard capable and you tin spot however Battlefield 6’s explosions and falling rumble hint backmost to Black’s Matrix-like gunfights and Burnout’s glorious collisions.

The question is the grade to which the workplace is escaped to determine wherever to deploy its unsocial expertise, identity, humour, and bequest and whether its defined individuality arsenic portion of Battlefield Studios genuinely utilises its heritage. Whether the individuals that marque up Criterion, a workplace with 30 years of racing crippled heritage, are blessed to enactment connected a sole shooter franchise for the foreseeable future.

That’s the portion of the communicative that I couldn’t rather articulation up during Criterion’s day celebrations. Not however the workplace came to go a cardinal collaborator successful Battlefield, but however that collaboration has seemingly narrowed its scope truthful overmuch that racing games aren’t considered portion of Criterion’s prerogative.

Phil Iwaniuk is simply a seasoned hardware smasher and crippled botherer who has written for the likes of PC Format, Official PlayStation Magazine, PCGamesN, The Guardian, Eurogamer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and IGN. He won an grant once, but helium doesn't similar to spell connected astir it.