The Burnout franchise must be one of the biggest and most exciting brands around which is still managing to present new ideas with each subsequent release and Revenge looks to be no exception. Burnout offers what you need, rock solid gameplay and racing cars at breathtaking speeds which pump the adrenaline near to critical levels; however Criterion are certainly not one to ease up on the gas, with a variety of new features, techniques, modes and the expect visual polish.

Derek dela Fuente recently had the opportunity spoke Emily Newton-Dunn, Producer on the game.

TVG: What do you see as the most significant improvements, changes or design ideas within Burnout Revenge and what does the ‘Revenge’ tagline mean?

We introduced the concept of aggressive racing and Takedowns in the last Burnout but in fact, you could just race to the finish line without having to engage with your rivals along the way. We loved the aggressive side of Takedown and wanted to up the ‘fury’ so this time, you can’t progress through the game unless you actively tussle with rivals. Hey aggression means progression in Revenge! We also realized though that if we wanted to up the aggressive ante, we were going to have to make a few changes to the gameplay as well. One of the core things we looked at were the tracks. In B3, the tracks were beautiful for racing on. They had great corners to drift around but really there weren’t that many places that you could actually fight on and smash your rivals into. This time round we focused on what you could do on the courses, where you could throw your opponents and what elements of the track design you could use to take them down. For this reason, the new Revenge courses feature alternate routes, shortcuts, hard stops, choke points and ramps, which you can perform Vertical Takedowns off….. very cool.

The Revenge name came about through the aggressive driving. Taking revenge is such a cool emotion and plays really well with Burnout.

TVG: How many of the team working on BR have worked on previous Burnout titles; have there been any fundamental changes in the set up of the team (Criterion) since it was taken over by EA and do the original philosophies of the company still remain?

We pride ourselves on being a great company to work for and a large proportion of the existing team worked on previous Burnouts. Other former Burnout members have moved upstairs to work on Criterion’s new game Black and there’s a lot of friendly rivalry between the teams.

I’m happy to say that EA has been really supportive since we joined their fold and we have been pretty much left to our own devices with the offer of help from EA’s incredible resources should we need them. It’s been nothing but a positive experience. Criterion has always strived to create and deliver games of the highest quality, which fits perfectly with EA’s own philosophy.

TVG: BR will have accurate depictions of settings, that include Chicago, Tokyo and Rome. What features of the cities mark them as unique, both visually and as a racing experience, and what were some of the tasks you had to undertake to ensure accuracy and details of these locations?

Actually there never was a Chicago – that was a misprint! The B3 Downtown track was modeled on Chicago’s El though so perhaps that’s where the confusion came from. We have announced tracks in Detroit, Tokyo and Rome and of course, there will be more to follow. Visually, every track is unique and carries a flavour of the city that it’s based in. You’ll never be able to negotiate a city using the Burnout streets but you will recognize where you’re at. For example, Detroit is industrial and grimy, while Tokyo is clean and the night time setting sets off the neon hoardings brilliantly.

Burnout will never be about pedantically replicating a road map. Burnout is a fun game and everything in the design, including tracks, works towards that. While some buildings may appear familiar – and some will be very familiar like the Coliseum in Rome – you won’t be able to recognize your granny’s condo from the roadside!

TVG: With Burnout winning so many awards and the fast nature of the game, it must have been hard to find technical room for improvements, so would we be right in saying the game relies more on locations and the layout and design of the game? To add, will the next batch of next gen machines give the team even more scope to create innovative ideas?

We pride ourselves on being world leaders on this generation of hardware and somehow our incredible technical team manages to get more out of them every Burnout.

I think we’ve had some fantastic innovations in the game! Checking traffic (like an ice hockey body check) is really cool and we continue to push the hardware harder than anyone out there. I’m sure that the next generation of hardware will offer its own unique opportunities but we’re not going there right now.

TVG: What modes will be on offer and can you expand for our readers on the all-new Revenge mode and traffic attack mode?

Burnout fans won’t be disappointed by the number of modes we have this time! Naturally we have Race, Road Rage, Burning Lap, Eliminator, Preview events and two new modes: Grudge Match and Traffic Attack. Grudge Matches are really cool because they come out of the blue. Start messing with a particular car in a race and if you take it down enough times, it will challenge you to a Grudge Match. Beat the car and you’ll unlock it in your garage. Lose however, and you risk everything that you won in the previous race. It’s a really cool mode that’s all about the risk and reward that Burnout fans have come to expect from our games.

Traffic Attack is seriously cathartic: it’s everything you ever wanted to do in busy traffic. Traffic Attack is about going wild in Rush Hour and taking everything out. Smash through the cars, score pile-ups and try to beat the clock. Naturally there are rules – same way traffic is safe, big stuff and oncoming is bad…. But you can always smash the safe stuff into the unsafe stuff! Very simple and very satisfying.

TVG: You have brought in professional car designers, is this more to do with a clever marketing ploy – what does this mean in terms of the game’s look and the actual playability of the cars/game?

We all love cool cars here and what’s the most outrageous (and naturally fun) thing you can do to a cool car? Smash it to smithereens of course! And that’s exactly what we and every person who plays Burnout gets to do. We brought in real car designers because we wanted our cars to look authentic, to have a style and personality that is consistent to Burnout, but that would also look like they would exist in real life.

In terms of playability, we have divided the cars into three classes: Race, Muscle and Crash. Each car has its strengths and we encourage the player to put the cars to the test.

TVG: How much planning, testing and reworking goes into the course design, and is there a process of hand drawn design, computer designs and code testing? Perhaps you can give our readers some insight into the methods when they are created?

Getting the Burnout games to play so well is a constant iteration of fine tuning and that includes the tracks. The team will probably start the design by visiting the location they are setting the course in, taking some reference photos and generally getting a feel for the place. This reference material will then be brought home to start working up the visual identity of the tracks.

In the meantime, another part of the track team will be creating a white box to try out the playability of the track. This is a very rough representation of the track without any of the ‘pretty’ added in. This gives us the chance to try out various gameplay options before the track is fully built. Once they are happy with the basic track gameplay and the visuals are added, the whole team will start to play the tracks and add their own layers of complexity like the traffic set up for example.

TVG: Some of the screenshots show amazing car deformation, how much more car and environmental deformation will be on offer and is this one of the reasons why we have yet to see licensed cars included!?

We reckon that there’s about three times as much vehicle deformation in Revenge than there was in Takedown. An incredible amount when you think how hard we pushed the hardware last year.

TVG: What can we expect form the online multiplayer options?

We are not currently disclosing these details.

TVG: The sound effects within the game play a really significant factor in the overall experience, how to you go about putting this all together and what improvements can we expect?

Our audio guys are a creative bunch and use a mix of what’s already available and bespoke audio that they record themselves. The car engines are mostly recorded from real cars and the sounds of the smashing and metal on metal are from trips to the scrapyard. That said, they’re a creative bunch and recently got a choir together made up of the rest of the team. I can’t tell you what for just yet but I know it’ll bring a smile to your face when you hear it in game!

Many thanks from the TVG team!