Criterion: NFS Most Wanted has ‘all the best sh*t from Burnout’

Criterion: NFS Most Wanted has ‘all the best sh*t from Burnout’
David Scammell Updated on by

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Need For Speed: Most Wanted has “all the best s*** about Burnout”, Criterion Games has claimed, saying that its upcoming open-world racer has been “influenced by” every game it’s developed in the past.

“It’s race, chase and it’s glory,” Most Wanted’s producer Matt Webster told VideoGamer.

“It’s everything we know about open-world driving, just piling it together. All the best s*** about Burnout and everything we did in Hot Pursuit, we’re just smashing them together.”

Criterion’s previous game, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, won a BAFTA in 2010 for Best Multiplayer Game and is the highest-scoring game in the franchise’s history.

But regardless, the developer doesn’t think it achieved everything it wanted to.

“[NFS: Most Wanted] is what we think an open-world game should be. Hot Pursuit was about beautiful cars and epic drives, and so it didn’t match what we wanted to do in that game. This time it totally does. Everything that we’ve ever done comes to pass here.”

Need For Speed: Most Wanted, however, appears to be heavily inspired by 2008 open-world racer Burnout Paradise rather than Hot Pursuit.

So, does Criterion consider Most Wanted as a spiritual successor to Burnout Paradise?

“Would you?” Webster replied.

“It’s a Criterion game so everything that we’ve ever done comes to play. We always say that each game we do is a reflection of us at the time, but of course, you’re going to be influenced by what we’ve done in the past and all the stuff we had fun with.

“You remember the journey that we went on with [Burnout] Paradise. The game that we shipped was absolutely not the game that we ended up with. And with Hot Pursuit we learned a bunch of other things. This is the best of everything.”

Need For Speed: Most Wanted was officially revealed at EA’s E3 press conference on Monday.

The game is due for release on November 2, 2012, on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and PC.