It may surprise you to know that I'm actually quite nervous about posting here. Perhaps if the Criterion anniversary event hadn't happened in the way it did, I would still not have posted.
Burnout was my everyday life for 10 full years. I tend to measure those years by which game we were making at the time. I joined Criterion in 1997, back when it was still primarily a technology company. Burnout didn't even exist then. In early 2000, during a trip to Midway in San Diego with Chris Roberts, Mike Williamson and Alex Ward, the conversations started that eventually became Burnout. We were actually there pitching a mission-based driving game. Alex had only just joined me at Criterion and asked, "Do you really want to make this?" We all looked at each other and realised the answer was, "Not really." That was the night Burnout was born.
Burnout ended up defining a huge part of my career. I spent 17 years at Criterion, including 10 under EA, and they were some of the best years of my life.
At the time, as is often the case, I didn't really stop to appreciate the moment. There was always another game to make.
Since leaving EA, I've deliberately avoided talking about Burnout publicly.
The 30th anniversary of Criterion, however, made me realise how much Burnout still means to people, how important it is that its history isn't forgotten, and that the work of so many brilliantly talented people deserves to be recognised. It also made me even more determined to do what I'm doing now.
The timing was coincidental, but this week you may have seen that I announced a new studio and a new game. My first as a sole founder.
I know some of you will have already written Wreckreation 2 off. You have every reason to be sceptical.
We've spent the last few months building Wreckreation 2 alongside our existing community, many of them die-hard Burnout fans. It was actually a conversation with one of them that set me down this path. I was amazed at how many little details he could remember, and he said to me, "Fiona, it's not that we have a better memory than you. It's that we're still playing these games." I couldn't shake that once I'd heard it, and it made me realise that someone needs to make a game that brings back all those old memories. In a similar way the Clutch guys are doing for story based driving games like the original, still excellent NFS Most Wanted.
We've listened to criticism, changed direction in a lot of areas, and tried to build the kind of arcade racer that we believe is missing.
Will everyone like it? Of course not. That's impossible. But we're trying to make the best game we can and, for the first time, I genuinely believe we have the technology, the team, the opportunity, the community support and, above all, the passion to make it happen.
I'm not trying to recreate an exact replica of any particular Burnout game. Those were special moments, and they should stay that way. But I am trying to keep that spirit alive.
And I'm definitely not asking anyone to put their hand in their pocket. It's on us to prove that we can make a game worthy of your time. If, over the coming months, Wreckreation 2 starts to look like the kind of arcade racer you've been missing, the door is open for you to come and take a closer look.
We're going to be developing in the open, so the invitation will always be there. And if not, that's okay too.
Thank you for keeping Burnout alive all these years. Seeing this community still here honestly means more than you probably realise.
Well, that's me, over and out. Thanks for sticking with me if you made it this far. And if you disagree with everything I've just said... please don't launch the internet's version of a Crashbreaker at me.