Criterion cancels extreme sports title as it shifts focus to Star Wars

Burnout developer Criterion has canned its upcoming extreme sports title in order to focus on EA’s expanding roster of Star Wars projects.

The untitled project was revealed at E3 back in 2014, and described as the ‘biggest game the studio has ever made’.

Pitched as going ‘beyond cars’, planned mechanics included the ability to drive vehicles such as boats, helicopters, airplanes, jet-skis and ATVs, as well as wingsuits, in first-person, a viewpoint inspired by extreme sports professionals recording their stunts on head-mounted cameras.

EA told GameSpot that the Criterion team would move to intensify its efforts working on Star Wars-related development – its first such project is the VR spin-off to DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront game, on which Criterion previously contributed its vehicular expertise.

"While they’ve moved on from the previous project they’ve spoken about and aren’t pursuing it, they are continuing to build new ideas and experiment with new IP for EA, in addition to continuing to collaborate with other EA studios," an EA spokesperson elaborated.