Burnout Paradise Remastered

Burnout 3: Takedown was a major change in direction for the series with its speed, wrecks, and overall addictive gameplay. Criterion’s Burnout Paradise went even further with an open-world environment and the freedom to progress at one’s own pace. This is on top of fully customizable race settings, a reworked damage model, streamlined progression that rewards new cars consistently, and much more. Crash Mode could even be accessed at any time via the new Showtime Mode. With an incredibly well-designed urban playground and fun gameplay, Burnout Paradise stands the test of time.

Nintendo’s newest console, the Switch, continues to burn up the charts month after month. The system has topped two record earning months back to back, for instance. But despite that, third party support is still on the low end. While it’s far better than Nintendo has had in years, it’s not nearly what you would expect from such a huge selling system due to the power gap between it and other current consoles. One company that has been entirely absent is EA. But that will change this week with the release of Burnout Paradise Remastered, and we got some screenshots of the Switch version.

Burnout Paradise was originally released on Xbox 360 and PS3, then eventually the PC, and then remastered for current systems. As you can see from the screens below, the game seems to look pretty close to the other versions at a glance. It should make for a smashing good time on the go, as long as it runs well.

Burnout Paradise Remastered will launch on Switch June 19th. It’s also available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Electronic Arts announced back in October 2019 that it would bring several of its title to Steam. Though it started slow with Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, it’s since released a number of titles like Unravel Two, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Sea of Solitude, and much more. Furthermore, it’s touting that EA Access will be coming “soon” to the platform as well.

How soon is “soon” remains to be seen, but it could launch at next week’s EA Play Live 2020. The digital event will be streamed on June 11th and will feature the publisher’s line-up for the rest of the year, with FIFA 21, Madden NFL 21, and more expected to be showcased. Will we see these same titles coming to Steam at the same as Origin? That remains to be seen.

EA Access is currently available for Xbox One and PS4, with its Origin launcher having Origin Access. There are two tiers for the service on PC. Theree’s Origin Access Basic, which provides access to dozens of EA and third party titles, along with free trials of upcoming games, for $4.99. Then there’s the Premier tier for access to full games one week before the worldwide launch for $14.99.

Burnout was, at one point, one of the purest fun experiences on the planet. Part racing game, part pure destruction, for a long time it was something to get out all your aggression out in the form of crushed metal and carnage. Now, though, it’s one of many IPs rotting in the EA graveyard, but at the very least you will be able to take the last entry, Burnout Paradise Remastered, on the go with a Switch version, and we might have an idea of when it’s releasing.

While nothing official has been announced, on the US eShop, a release date of June is shown. While on the online page it simply says 2020, as you can see via Twitter user Wario64 below, when you go in manually through the system the date is shown there (it still is as of writing this). Can’t help but note that price, too, at a whopping $49.99. For reference, the original version that released on PS4 and Xbox One launched at $39.99 in 2018. It is the first time Paradise has been on a Nintendo system, in fact it’ll be the first Burnout game to do so since Burnout Legends on Nintendo DS in 2005. I guess they expect you to pay.

Burnout Paradise Remastered is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. The Switch will possibly be release on June 19th.

Burnout Paradise Remastered is releasing on Switch on June 19th according to the eShop pic.twitter.com/O2RnP3IRVd

— Wario64 (@Wario64) April 17, 2020

Nintendo revealed during their shadow-dropped Nintendo Direct Mini presentation yesterday that Burnout Paradise Remastered is coming to the Switch. EA’s support for the hybrid platform has been severely lacking and best and has been the recipient of much criticism, though the publisher has expressed interest in rectifying that- surely, this is a good first step down that road (one would hope).

EA have also released a trailer for the Switch release of the open world trailer, which you can view below. The game will run at 60 FPS, feature touch screen controls for its map, include all post-launch DLC, and, of course, the base game itself. Stellar Entertainment are once again handling the game’s port. No release date – another than a 2020 window – has been announced yet.

Burnout Paradise Remastered launched for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC in March 2018. In our review, we praised the remaster efforts for one of the all-time racing greats. You can read our full review through here.

What originally set, and kept Burnout apart from their competition throughout the entire run of the series was how they turned the goals of a racer on its head, asking players to take big risks by driving against traffic, ramming their opponents off the road and a general disregard for safety, all wrapped together with what were at the time very technically impressive car crumpling slow-mo shots that just fulfill some primal thrill. The original title had some rather humble origins for what it would become though, as an under the radar gem published by Aklaim.

The game featured a collection of cars that would get it laughed out of the locker room when you put it beside racers today, and their hundreds of customizable rides, with a small grouping of 9 cars in four different classes, all ranked by how easy they are to handle in the game’s championship events. From a Supermini to a Bus, players have to barrel through oncoming traffic and cross busy intersections at speed if they want to make it into the winners circle, building boost through more daring feats like near-misses against traffic, and weaving through the wrong lane.

While the game didn’t see much mainstream recognition at this level, it certainly had fans of the over the top driving and detailed, at least for PS2 standards, crash physics. The popularity of which inspired the series insanely popular Crash Mode, which debuted in Burnout 2: Point of Impact on PS2 just over a year later. While the championship remains very much the same, Crash mode places the player onto specially designed situations with tons of traffic, and asks them to aim for a high score by managing to cause as much havoc as possible.

The Crash Mode, as well as other additions to the standard gameplay loop like Pursuit Mode, where you had to take down a criminal car to unlock it, really resonated with racing fans, and is where the Burnout Series first really came into its own, with sites like Gamespot, GameSpy and Eurogamer granting the title insanely high accolades, praising the game as one of the most compelling arcade driving titles of it’s era. A more diverse range of vehicles with more apparent stat differences between them helped raise the star of the series just a bit further, but it would take one more game before things really took off.

With the fall of Aklaim in 2004, Burnout 3: Takedown and all subsequent entries in the series were published by Electronic Arts, though still developed by Criterion. This wasn’t always going to be the case however, with the studio and publisher having previously fallen out over creative differences over a skateboarding game. Burnout 3 only was made after EA came back to the studio, and made the game happen with the condition that EA would have no say in the creative process. It turned out very well for them.

With Criterion’s firm hand still very much on the wheel, they took a “If it’s not broke” approach to tuning the series and introduced the Takedown mechanic, which made the already adrenaline filled racing experience that much more personal. Players were able to slam other racers into crashes, and have that tie back into the all important boost mechanic, encouraging players to not only dart between traffic, but to get their sonic sumo on as opposing players worked to disrupt their rhythm. This final piece of the puzzle felt like it finally completed the Burnout experience, and both critics, and thanks to a little bit of EA marketing money, gamers just adored the highly tuned racer.

Burnout 3: Takedown went on to receive an impressive collection of awards, including two magazines even ranking the title as Game of the Year. Remember that this is the same year we saw Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, just to put into perspective the heights that the series had risen to. For the first time, a Burnout game was dominating the sales charts just as hard as its hardcore players were dominating on the track, with regions like Australia seeing the game hit top 10 for both Xbox and PS2.

Even today, Burnout 3: Takedown is considered a highlight and triumph not only for its series, but for arcade racing games in general. General consensus is that the game easily stands with the best titles on the two sixth generation systems with its track design, mode selection, sense of speed and varied modes. The standing 94% on Metacritic for the Xbox version speaks for itself.

With this third title having Criterion and Burnout easily among the pantheon that once belonged to Need for Speed and Gran Turismo, unfortunately the only place to go from the top is down. The 2005 follow up in Burnout Revenge was decidedly given a different direction, with a grittier aesthetic that pushed the takedown mechanic even more into the forefront. Alex Ward, Director on most of the series, would later comment that while they purposely didn’t want to just create Burnout 3 again, he doesn’t believe that any of the games following quite captured the same spirit.

Between Burnout Revenge, which allowed players to check traffic into other racers and went full Michael Bay to the slight detriment of the skill that racing took, and their true follow up in Burnout Paradise, we have a quick aside to the black sheep of the series, Burnout Dominator. No, we… we don’t talk about the underwhelming handheld games. While EA used Criterion’s name, they were busy creating Paradise and so, EA UK took the reigns on the one and only game since the original Burnout to ditch the lauded Crash Mode, among other elements such as traffic checking, online multiplayer, and racing wheel support. The game saw a noticeable drop in critical reception, which tends to happen when a game is so obviously pushed out to stall. But if the Burnout series was only going to get one more lap, what Criterion had in the garage was worth waiting for.

The last official release, aside from an App Store Crash spin off, to this very day is Burnout Paradise, which came out of Alex Ward wanting to bring a little bit of Crackdown into the Burnout series. The concept took the form of a racing game without defined tracks, and a spider web of roads making an open world in which players can explore at their leisure and take on events in any order they choose. The tiny world of Paradise City is a bit cute ten years later, releasing in the same year as a game like Forza Horizon 4.

Despite lack of any real faith from EA next to the Need for Speed series, Burnout Paradise rocketed to the top of sales charts, selling over 1 million copies within three months of release, and provided the foundation upon which racing games are being built upon until this day.  While it didn’t quite hit the heights of Takedown, Paradise managed a Metacritic within the 80’s depending on which platform you looked at, and took many Best Driving Game awards for the year.

Given the heights and acclaim that the studio had brought themselves, it almost seems like Burnout just stalled for no real reason. The fact that EA could rerelease the last entry in the series ten years after the fact as Burnout Paradise Remastered, and critics found that time had done very little to dull the adrenaline rush that the game embodied speaks to the passion and creativity of the team. The influence of the series lives on within Need for Speed and Forza Horizon. So what gives? At first, nothing gave at all. Criterion was handed the keys to a new ride, which EA had happily given when Criterion developed 2010’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and then 2012’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Both sold pretty well and got decent critical reception too. But the team was a bit hamstrung by the expectations of Need for Speed. The heart just wasn’t in the games anymore, and the fast action definitely wasn’t either.

Criterion simply slipped back away into the shadows as their brand and baby was thrown aside, eventually leaving studio creator and director, Alex Ward to publicly put out on Twitter that the studio was moving away from racing games. A mere four months later, in September 2013, 80% of the staff was moved to Ghost Games UK to work on Need for Speed, leaving a tiny 17 person team to be the shell team we now know as Criterion, helping create vehicle segments for DICE.

There’s a world out there where EA cultivated the Burnout series for the interesting titles that they were, right alongside Need for Speed. But this is the darkest timeline, and the slow fall of Criterion and the Burnout series go hand in hand, as the minds behind one of the best arcade racers on PS2 slowly, surely got mulched into a support team for pod racing. No EA, it was not a good trick.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

After announcing that Burnout Paradise Remastered would be coming to PC next week, Electronic Arts has also confirmed that the game is available for Origin Access Premier this month. The Big Surf Island DLC is also included with it and in fact, those with an Origin Access Premier subscription can play it right now.

For those with regular Origin Access, there are a number of quality releases to look forward to. Zoink’s Fe, another title in the EA Originals program, will also be available. Though it’s not the most compelling platforming adventure game, it still boasts a nice aesthetic and pleasing atmospherics. Other titles including Hover, Ghost of a Tale, Mr. Shifty, Pillars of the Earth, Punch Club, Splasher, and Figment are also confirmed to be included in Origin Access for this month.

Origin Access costs $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year, while Origin Access Premier is $20 per month and $130 per year. The latter is costlier, but offers instant access to new EA titles like the upcoming Battlefield 5, Anthem, FIFA 19, and more. In fact, you can even play them in full earlier.

Criterion’s Burnout Paradise Remastered will finally be making its way to PC. It’s out on August 21st, coming six months after the PS4 and Xbox One versions (which may be a blessing, given the problems at launch).

Burnout Paradise Remastered is, as the name implies, a remaster of the 2008 racing classic. Along with stunts and racing through Paradise City at insane speeds, players could engage in all kinds of destruction. Even a decade later, Burnout Paradise stands as a pinnacle for the arcade racing genre, even despite the lack of quality-of-life features that titles like Forza Horizon and Onrush boast.

The Remastered version introduces visual improvements, though how the PC version stacks up to the original release remains to be seen. At least the Big Surf Island DLC will be available as well for players to enjoy. Check out GamingBolt’s official review of the PS4 version to learn more about the game, which sees only minor improvements over the base version.

When the remastered version of Burnout Paradise was announced, I was quite surprised. EA and Criterion bringing back a series which was suppose to be dead, albeit in a remastered form, was quite shocking to me. But here we are and after spending some time with the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro versions, my impressions on this remastered version is quite mixed.

Let us begin with the good things. Burnout Paradise runs a native 4K resolution on the Xbox One whereas the PS4 Pro seems to be operating at a lower resolution scale. This is expected given the power gap between the two platforms but there are also other surprises in store. In order to support the 4K generation, the developers have added high resolution textures and various volumetric effects such as smoke. Other enhancements include detailed shadow quality, better looking particle effects and a rock solid 60fps support. Distant details resolve quickly and the racing here really feels superior compared to what we witnessed back in 2008, more than a decade ago! Unfortunately, we don’t have access to the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions but we are pretty sure that some of these things were not even present back then. So, it’s a decent improvement overall. The bump in resolution is expected but there isn’t much which differentiates the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X versions.

Unfortunately, not everything is shiny here. The cutscenes are still rendered as is, which is sub-HD resolution. It’s not game breaking but does impact the presentation. Secondly, the remastered version is filled with jaggies and it doesn’t help the image quality one bit. The developers could have easily used the horsepower available and smoothen out those annoying jaggies but looks like that’s not happening anytime soon. And lastly, both versions are reportedly affected by bugs, and crashes which means the experience has become messy for some players. We didn’t face any such issues but it’s definitely out there and Criterion is addressing them.

Overall, Burnout Paradise feels like port with some expected enhancements. We are neither disappointed nor thrilled with the visual improvements. I think Burnout fans would have been better served if the team chose to make a new game, but as of right now we are left with mixed impressions.

And then it all ended. For some reason, Paradise was the last Burnout game EA released. We never got another one after that. Criterion first got pulled into making Need for Speed games- which they did, and they were fine, albeit not as good as Burnout– and then, they got pulled into… what, exactly? The studio was reduced to providing support for other studios, becoming a shell staff, if that. How had the same developer who had given us one of the most beloved franchises of all time come to this?

Well, it’s unclear what happened, or even what the future holds for them- but what is clear is that Burnout, at least, gets another lap under the sun, even if it is on a track we’ve already seen it race on. Burnout Paradise may not be the most beloved Burnout game- in fact, due to its open world nature, as well as its removal of the beloved Crash Mode, it is arguably the most divisive one- but it is a Burnout game nonetheless, and that means it is fantastic by definition. And now, the market gets another shot to let it shine.

"In a lot of ways, booting up Burnout Paradise reveals just how ahead of its time the original game, which came out over ten yeas ago in January 2008, was."

In a lot of ways, booting up Burnout Paradise reveals just how ahead of its time the original game, which came out over ten yeas ago in January 2008, was- here was a game that went fully open world (long before the present movement to open world games industry wide began), and with persistent social events and online gameplay, in the vein of games like Monster Hunter, Destiny, and The Division. And it did this all back in 2008- in many ways, the game was so far ahead of its time, the market probably didn’t properly appreciate it back then.

The flipside of that is, where Paradise may have been a revelation back in 2008- and for all its divisiveness with its fanbase, it was- it can come off as a little ho-hum and trite today. An open world racer? With persistent social elements? What’s the big deal, exactly? Every game does that today. Heck, even racers do that today, including Ubisoft’s The Crew, Microsoft’s Forza Horizon, and EA’s own new Need for Speed games.

The thing that Burnout Paradise, however, does, which those games do not, and which allows it to easily surmount and belie its age, is just how fantastically well it is designed. This is instantly apparent with Paradise City, which the game takes place in and is named after- Paradise City is a monument of game design, one of the best, most dense, and richly designed levels ever. It unfolds like a sprawling, multi layered labyrinth, with everything from roads, to shortcuts, billboards, traffic, and obvious and not-so-obvious markers acting as cues for where the player can go and what they can do. Burnout Paradise‘s open world was a revelation, not just for how well it was implemented in context of the larger racing in the gameBurnout games had always been about causing carnage, with emphasis being on the ‘car’ part of that word- and in Burnout Paradise, the training wheels were off, and you got a full city to spread your terror in, ramming into traffic and causing glorious metal destruction.

The actual driving is utterly fantastic, too. Controls are tight, the sense of speed is palpable (seriously, no one ever did this as well as Criterion did), and the sensation of making a sharp turn to nudge into a vehicle who then slams into the side of the road, with glorious particle effect aplenty to signify the crash as the camera pans over the destruction in slow motion… there are few feelings as visceral or as satisfying in all of gaming. Ten years later, Burnout manages to still show up just about every other racing game on the market how it is done.

It helps, too, that there is so much to do in Paradise– the base game was absolutely packed with content, as already mentioned, but EA and Criterion have also made the wise decision of including every single bit of DLC ever released for the title with the remaster. Which is standard practice for all remasters, of course, and only adds to the amount of already ludicrous content available in the game- but also has the curious effect of actually adversely affecting the game somewhat in this case, since many high level cars, that otherwise wouldn’t have been available to you until the end game, are unlocked from the get go now, ruining the progression curve somewhat.

"Burnout Paradise is absolutely fantastic. I cannot give many games a higher recommendation than I am giving to this game. Burnout was, back in the day, king, and Paradise was the king’s final days on the throne. Now we don’t know if the king will ever return, but at least, for now, we get to relive the last of his glory days."

It helps that it looks and sounds great, too. Paradise was a looker back in the day, thanks to Criterion being technical geniuses, and because their art style was sharp and clean- and ten years later, remastered in glorious 4K, the game continues to look stunning. There are some things about it that can betray its age somewhat- like some blander textures- but if you can see those, chances are you’re going too slow, and therefore not playing the game as it is supposed to be played.

That said, the game’s strong technical and visual design for its time, or the fact that the sense of speed can cover the blemishes that it has now in 2018, cannot excuse the fact that this seems to be a curiously subdued port. Yes, the game looks good- but that’s because, as mentioned, because of the extremely strong visual design the original game had to begin with. Improvements on the original are minimal, and while 4K resolution is supported, the rest of the game’s visuals don’t seem to have gotten the upgrade that they deserved to go along with that increase in resolution, which only throws the deficiencies in sharper contrast.

Burnout Paradise also had a hell of a soundtrack, with Guns N’ Roses’ Paradise City playing as you booted the game up, and… I am so happy to report that the music has made it through into the remaster with no omissions. Given not just how good the music was, but how much it actively contributed to the atmosphere of the game, I am so glad this is the case.

On the other hand, as great as Burnout Paradise is, there are certain aspects of it that betray that it is an older game right away. The most baffling of this is the lack of fast travel or quick select for events. Now, this does make sense from a perspective- Criterion has created this whole sandbox for you to tromp around in, and bypassing that literally misses the point of the game, and travel in a Burnout game is by definition fast. But a time will come when you are dozens of hours into the game, and you have already scoured and uncovered the entire city, discovered all its shortcuts and collectibles, and there is nothing new left to uncover- at that point, you probably just want to get on to the next race already, and the game doesn’t let you. That’s kind of a bummer.

The other big problem is, and this was as much a problem back in 2008 as it is now, the lack of a Crash Mode. Crash Mode was, along with the takedown fuelled Road Rage mode, the series’ most popular and signature mode. There was a puzzle box sensibility to Crash Mode, which asked players to carefully consider the flow of the traffic, the placement of power ups, and the lay of the roads, before timing their crashes that made it so compelling- but it was gone from Paradise. Its replacement was a mode name Showtime, and while it was fine, it was never as great as Crash Mode. It still is not.

These problems mar the experience a bit- but only a bit. Burnout Paradise is absolutely fantastic. I cannot give many games a higher recommendation than I am giving to this game. Burnout was, back in the day, king, and Paradise was the king’s final days on the throne. Now we don’t know if the king will ever return, but at least, for now, we get to relive the last of his glory days- for now, that will have to suffice.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 4.