Wreckreation studio put entire staff on notice of redundancy, but still believe in their latest Burnout revival

"My hope is that by showing this work publicly, someone out there might also see that potential"

Three Fields Entertainment, developers of Burnout with sky roads racer Wreckreation, have announced that their entire team have been put on notice of redundancy. According to the announcement from CEO and former Criterion studio director Fiona Sperry, this comes as Three Fields find themselves without backing from Wreckreation publishers THQNordic, having "had to self-fund most of this year".

"Without the enthusiasm or financial support from our publisher to continue development, we simply cannot sustain the studio in its current form. Making this decision has been unbelievably painful," Sperry wrote in a message shared via the game's Twitter account.

"This is a heartbreaking moment for all of us," she continued. "What makes it even harder is that we have so many things in the pipeline — multiple features, updates, and creative ideas that we were excited to bring to the game, many of which are showcased in the video we’re sharing today."

Said video, which you can watch via the tweet above, shows off a number of feature additions which I'll be keen to give a go if they do make it into Wreckreation. One's an "accident black spots" mode mirroring classic Burnout's brilliant crash mode, in which you're given a junction and tasked with causing as costly a pileup as possible. There's also a "tightrope mode" all about driving along very narrow airborne obstacle courses, the ability to add buildings to the map while in the game's live mix building mode, and a bunch of construction vehicles and trucks you can drive around.

Of all those, the crash mode's something I could genuinely see giving Wreckreation some bounce-back potential, assuming the likes of BeamNG.Drive haven't filled that void in many players' minds. The ability to essentially build your own towns could also go a long way to helping put a plaster on one of the game's biggest problems - its boringly barren worldspace outside of player-built sky spaghetti.

"My hope is that by showing this work publicly, someone out there might also see that potential and perhaps an opportunity could still emerge," Sperry wrote. "But even if that hope does not materialise, we want this to stand as a testament to our vision and to the strength, passion, and skill of our tiny team." As of writing, Three Fields still plan to deliver an update adding crossplay to Wreckreation before Christmas.

All the news we report about game developers losing their jobs or being at risk of that sees us send our best to the folks affected, but I'm particularly sad to see Three Fields in this tough situation. That's largely because I really enjoyed the work Sperry, Alex Ward and co did on Burnout and Need For Speed while at Criterion, with both those series either dormant or currently on hold.

Both Wreckreation and 2019's Dangerous Driving had a chance to be Three Fields' big 'Burnout's back, baby' moments, conclusively proving to the suits at EA that locking the series in the attic of dormant entities was a hugely short-sighted move. Neither quite managed to stick the landing, though. In my hours playing both, I've never felt like that faliure was down to them being cynical nostalgia-fests, attempts to cash in on the anarchic old arcade racers myself and others fell in love with. Instead, and perhaps this is because I've gone in each time hoping I'll be blown away, the two games felt like the vision was solid, but the small studio just hadn't been able to nail the nuances of execution.

They weren't a million miles off reigniting the magic of classic Burnout, with EA and Criterion's substantial resources behind it. They're still yet to get there, though. Here's hoping that another publisher who're willing to back Three Fields swoop in and as always, solidarity to the studio's staff as they face an uncertain future.