Burnout Devs Working on New Need for Speed

Burnout creators Criterion Games are switching gears to make the next Need for Speed game, which Electronic Arts says will be a “revolutionary” take on the franchise.

Contrary to how it may seem, the Burnout team over at Criterion Games is not planning on spending the rest of their careers churning out DLC pack after DLC pack for Burnout Paradise. No, they’re doing something altogether unrelated, something that’s not even Burnout. As EA COO John Pleasants revealed at a conference today, the team is working on the next game in EA’s other racing series, Need for Speed.

“We’ve taken the Burnout team and combined it with our Need for Speed franchise,” he said about efforts to bring the series back to prominence. “So we now have that in our favor because that Burnout team is probably one of the more online-centric and notably high-quality game developers that we have out at Criterion.”

So can we expect the next Need for Speed to take an “online-centric” approach like Burnout Paradise? Too soon to tell, but according to remarks made by EA boss John Riccitiello, the next game will definitely be different. The Burnout team, he told Kotaku, is “is working on a revolutionary take on Need for Speed.”

What will become of Burnout then? Will the two franchise merge into one Voltron of mega-racing games? Riccitiello doesn’t think so. “I don’t think you can fold Burnout into Need for Speed, because a lot of people like Burnout,” he explained. “I don’t know, if Paramount, in addition to owning Star Trek owned Star Wars, which isn’t the way it is, I don’t think you’d merge them.”

You would consider it, though, wouldn’t you?

[Via G4]