Criterion talks up binned Burnout DLC

By Tom Bramwell Published 18 December, 2009

Planes! Boats! Time travel! Squirrels!

Criterion has revealed various plans for downloadable content in Burnout Paradise that never made it into production.

Some of these sound a bit far-fetched, but according to the official website they included planes, helicopters, boats, time travel and the moon.

"Someone on the team said that 'players want the moon on a stick when it comes to DLC'. We thought that was funny and thought we'd do it," the blog detailed.

"The actual surface of the real moon was modelled and it was drive-able. Lunar Challenges would have been totally unexpected - as would have been zero gravity Takedowns and Challenges." The actual surface of the real moon.

Time travel's another good one. "On a certain day, a time portal would have opened on the Island. When you jumped through, you would have found yourself on Big Surf, at another point in history.

"Maybe the Wild West... you could have done some Challenges and then jumped back. At this point, even some hardened members of The Burnout Team thought this was 'going a bit too far'."

Check out the rest of the post to see what else we nearly lucked into playing. Or just skive off work because of the snow and dig out Ultimate Box.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • frunk #1 2 years ago

    And that blog post goes a long way to show why its a good reason to allow developers to flourish without heavy handed publisher intervention - genuine, wild creativity... some of which survived into the game.

  • Doctor_What #2 2 years ago

    From the blog: "We had a really good time with Burnout Paradise once development of the main game was complete." That might be accurate, because the development was f**king hellish due to the management style at Criterion, the year-long crunch, the abusive and back-stabbbing competitive office atmosphere. I hear that not much has changed since I left, and I'm sincerely glad I'm not there anymore.

  • Ignatius_Cheese #3 2 years ago

    Should. Have. Happened ;_;

  • ShiroBen #4 2 years ago

    Having a time travel bit would've been an excellent opportunity for a Back To The Future tribute.

  • Doctor_What #5 2 years ago

    Back To The Future? It's a 1980s film, so Alex Ward will have heard of it. Sadly his only references in conversations to anything outside of games are to 1980s films. It grates after a while.

  • carrotcake #6 2 years ago

    So are they done with dlc now. I pretty much stopped enjoying the game anyway. Used to be one of my fave PS3 games along with Wipeout HD. Now it's just lost its luster and I was never excited by premium car packs.

  • Xeopuppy #7 2 years ago

    Big Surf Island for PC, that is what they should be blogging about, where the hell is it??????

  • SnoppleMonster #8 2 years ago

    This game REALLY needed the gigantic race arrow markers on the road from previous Burnout games in all racing modes. It was a smidge silly to expect map-reading, car dodging, and takedowns all at 1 BAZILLION miles per hour. So many races were just ruined by ending up in dead ends or going off the beaten track.... and those indicators that were provided were just VAGUE!

    If they had the arrows as a DLC it would have completely turned the game around for me.

    The other modes, the jumps, crashes and free world stuff worked great...... It just stopped being about the races, and that made me sad, as that was what made Burnout for me.



  • kangarootoo #9 2 years ago

    @Doctor_What

    I've never worked there myself, but I've heard similar stories from several ship jumpers that have. Attrocious place.

  • Ziggy_badMonkey #10 2 years ago

    The DLC has finished because they have moved onto the next NFS.
    Reason for the "Year of Paradise" was that due to crunch and walkouts there was not enough of a team to begin full production on another title.
    It def was not down to the management wanting to give something back.
    You have to justify the wages of 60 people.
    Not to mention that they had nothing in pre pro and the other title they had in development (a DS game) was canned.

  • magicpocket #11 2 years ago

    Please could we have a dlc which reverts the game back to a linear experience and is like Burnout 2.

  • Doctor_What #12 2 years ago

    The DS one was binned? I was wondering what happened to that. Man... That studio really does need new leadership.

  • Eraysor #13 2 years ago

    They should have really done something like this.

  • BillyBrush #14 2 years ago

    ping ping ping ping ping

    Turn right....not the first right the second right, now you're going backwards, doh!

    ping ping ping ping ping

    Turn Left....but do i take the first left...or the second left, ahh i'll just aim in between...crash

    Open world high speed crash racing eh, what an idea....i do hope they make another one

  • RedSparrows #15 2 years ago

    Once I'd done a couple of laps around the game, I knew my way around for races.

    The only thing missing from Paradise was proper crash junctions. Man those were a game in themselves.

  • matrim83 #16 2 years ago

    Some of those ideas sounded pretty cool but can we get a new Burnout game please?

  • kangarootoo #17 2 years ago

    "The only thing missing from Paradise was proper crash junctions. Man those were a game in themselves."

    Very true. Chasing those gold medals in BO3 was insanely addictive and the difficulty balance was perfect.

  • Murton #18 2 years ago

    I wouldn't say gamers want "the moon on a stick" when it comes to DLC. Expectations are high certainly but not unachievable. Speaking for myself all I want from DLC is something which is as interesting as the full game and adds to the experience of it, something that fits into the game without feeling like it was removed from the game in post production purely to command an additional price post-release, and of course it should be reasonably priced and available on all platforms that the game is sold on, that goes without saying.

    Unfortunately such DLCs are few and far between, most are comprised of content that just feels cut from the main game to command additional price, others are mere "unlock codes" sold at ludicrous prices and some are just plain bad. The ideas in the blog, while outlandish, aren't so bad that they couldn't have been done within the tongue in cheek world of Paradise City and they would have added a lot more to Burnout than new super-powered cars add to Need for Speed.

  • bad09 #19 2 years ago

    I LOVE BO: Takedown and I've tried to like Paradise especially with the DLC support from Criterion but I can't. No proper Crash mode and the vague map watching racing just isn't for me, it's like a whole game of GTA race missions. Not fun.

  • darleysam #20 2 years ago

    .... blimey.

    Criterion, please make more Burnout and just put all this in.

  • kangarootoo #21 2 years ago

    @Murton

    I think the point is that the goal posts move. There are lots of gamers out there who will always want "whatever you give me, plus a little bit more".

    Its like feeling short changed is the default setting for some people, especially those that are most vocal on the forum pages Criterion will use to gather player feedback.

  • Skurmedel #22 2 years ago

    I wonder if they will ever make a non-racing game again, I take it their previous efforts in other genres were pretty good. I don't know if Burnout will feel that fresh when it hits its fifteenth incarnation, much like Need For Speed (although it's looking good again).

    Edit: Curse thee, evil apostrophe.
    Edited by 3 at 18/12/09 @ 13:00

  • Ziggy_badMonkey #23 2 years ago

    I don't think they will make another Burnout to be honest.
    Paradise cost in the region of 40 million and sold just over a million copies not a good investment.
    In comparison Revenge sold over 3 million and cost under 10 million to make.
    The franchise is near enough dead and they won't be another one for a few years if at all.
    Same as Black....Criterion have a real problem with doing more than one game at a time as Ward wants his way on everything, he can't multitask.
    Black and Burnout Revenge in full production at the same time was a bloody miracle and once in a company lifetime situation at Criterion.
    Black is over unless EA give it to another studio.
    NFSpeed by Criterion is the next Burnout.
    The franchise never really took off in the U.S where the NFS franchise was at one point massive with over 10 million units selling on each edition.

  • Skurmedel #24 2 years ago

    Hmm okay :/... I really want the new Need for Speed games to be good, as a fan of the first four. And I like Shift, I'm worried it might be a one time thing though.

  • swisstony #25 2 years ago

    aaah, Black 2.
    You've got a tech team that can do anything with the hardware and a design team that is hardcore for fps as well as driving games. I'm sure they could do an amazing job. For a first ever fps for 99% of the old dev team, Black proves me right.

  • Doctor_What #26 2 years ago

    Except Alex Ward hated Black because it wasn't his baby, it gave someone else power in the company, and he wrote the (abysmal) story and got in a huff when everyone rightly pointed out that the story was rubbish.

  • kangarootoo #27 2 years ago

    Christ, I had forgotten about the "story" in Black. Oh those unskippable real actor cutscenes around a table. It was like watching paint dry... AFTER IT HAD BEEN PAINTED ONTO YOUR EYEBALLS!

  • secombe #28 2 years ago

    Surely, all 99% of gamers really wanted was old-school Burnout 2 Crash Junctions, updated with pretty graphics and lots of cool new locations? No silly gimmicks, no slo-mo control, no tokens to collect, just crash and watch.

    How this has never returned (properly) I will never know, surely it would have been a huge DLC success?

  • fknetwork #29 2 years ago

    @ Doctor_What
    You sure you wasn't fired with that terrible attitude? seems they are much better without you!
    Edited by 1 at 18/12/09 @ 21:29

  • kangarootoo #30 2 years ago

    @fknetwork

    Touchy.

    What exactly have you identified as being a "terrible attitude"?


    "seems they are much better without you!"

    Based on.... what?

  • tachometer #31 2 years ago

    When are they going to make a sequal to Black? I loved that game!

  • smelly #32 2 years ago

    "zero gravity takedowns"

    .. erm.. there's gravity on the moon.

  • smelly #33 2 years ago

    Personally i liked paradise.. best $15 i ever spent.

  • IronCladChicken #34 2 years ago

    @Ziggy_badMonkey
    I don't think it did too badly - Released in Jan'08 & had sold a million by April?