Crieterion Outlines Stalled Burnout DLC Plans News

Burnout: Paradise may have been well supported with DLC, but it was only the tip of the iceburg according to a Crieterion article that outlined their initial plans.
 
Having ammased reams of data from player sessions, Criterion had to shelve plans on the docks/shipyard island it was creating.  Assuming that Stunt Runs were the most popular game type, the Guildford based developer turned its focus to the fact that most players were playing the Freeburn Challenges and opted to develop Big Surf Island instead.
 
The initial plan was to develop several island linked to Paradise City, each themed around a different idea.  "One was going to be purely off-road based. Hence we created the 'Dust Storm' dune buggy in anticipation for that," Criterion reveals.  "Our original dreams for Paradise were to create a series of Islands, all connected to Paradise City and each would focus on a different style of racing game. One Island was going to be completely circuit based - and be all marked up like a modern Formula One circuit!"
 
However, that's not all.  Further planned updates range from the outrageously awesome to the sheer ridiculous: 
 
1. Planes. A lot of Burnout fans already know about this - as we showed flying around in a live podcast. It was really cool to be able to see Paradise City from the air. It did not happen because of the way the game world was built. . Think of it like a film set, a very big film set - meant to be seen from certain camera angles and not others.

2. Helicopters! Completely true. We wanted to have both Aerial Challenges and allow flying and driving players to work together. Players would be able to jump into containers swinging below hovering choppers. Even better, those hoops in the Airfield would have been able to be picked up by a heli and flown. That Freeburn Challenge involving jumping through a hoop would have been much more fun if a chopper was carrying it!

3. The Moon! Again, completely true. 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 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 idea was that we would have built a rocket pad on Big Surf. If you reached a certain Rank, or completed a number of specific challenges, you could drive there, press a button and the rocket would launch. Destination - Moon! (Now that would have beaten downloadable car liveries any day!)

4. Motorcycles Versus Cars - This one was always a moot point. Whilst we would love to do it (some of us are die-hard 'Road Rash' 3DO fans) - we thought it best to keep them separate. Mixing Burnout with Road Rash - or Burnout VERSUS Road Rash as we saw it would have led to pandemonium. A bit like dogs and cats living together. Although we remain 'ready to be believed' - it's clear that Cars could easily Takedown Bikes but Bikes can't really Takedown a Car - even with a length of chain...

5. Time Travel - Not many know about this, but it was discussed. 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.')

6. Underground - This was once hinted at on our forum. The idea that you could drive down under the city - leading to fast underground tunnels and open areas for Challenges.

7. Boats - This was never prototyped but was discussed. If we had built a series of Islands we would have wanted the player to be able to race to them - in Cars, Planes or even Boats. Hence a few jetties were built into Big Surf. This never went further than a quick discussion. Most likely left on the table for being far too sane. But 'Burnout on the Water' would have been a lot of fun indeed. We all know that boats can jump because we saw it in the film "Live And Let Die.'

Presumably having shelved all of those ideas, the studio can focus on getting Need for Speed back into more familiar territory.  Personally we'd love to see them bring back Road Rash.