Burnout Paradise - On this day

The open-world model became attractive to the racing game genre as early as the turn of the century with the Midnight Club and Need for Speed series. But a good portion of the car games still kept their races on closed sections. Until 2008, the Burnout series was one of them, and that has changed to this day, 14 years ago, when Burnout Paradise was launched - the first and probably the last Burnout of the open world.

The fifth part of the Burnout series set us in a fictional Paradise City where we competed in a whole series of dynamic activities scattered around the map. It is safe to say that the design of this game influenced the model of later Need for Speed titles, especially because they were later taken over by the Criterion team, which is responsible for this game.

Unlike later racing titles, Burnout Paradise remained unique in that it did not limit players when racing to one path but allowed them to reach the finish line on whichever route the player wanted to reach. A significant contribution of this game was also left on the multiplayer, which was accessed directly from the ride, without separate lobbies and shuffling through a bunch of menus while the game was paused.

At the end of 2008, the game received significant upgrades in which a dynamic system of weather conditions and motorcycles were added. A year after appearing on consoles, the game is also on PC through the so-called The Ultimate Box edition and received several new DLC packages during the year.

Burnout Paradise 2018 received its Remastered edition, without major graphic interventions, but in a package with all previous content. Currently, the game can be played on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 4, and EA Play subscribers get it for free as part of the subscription.