Somewhere out there is a universe in which Burnout Paradise was followed a couple of years later by Burnout Paradise 2, and then a few years after that came other spinoffs and variations on one of the best arcade racing series around. For some reason we don’t live in that universe and have to make due with the one we’ve got, which at times can seem disappointing. The Burnout series was never as big as Need for Speed so it got left behind, which was great for EA’s bottom line, but not so hot for series fans. Three Fields Entertainment is comprised of former Criterion developers who worked on Burnout and has been poking at the edges of a full thematic sequel, and while Dangerous Driving was close, there was definite room for improvement. This was supposed to happen in Dangerous Driving 2, but then the pandemic hit and all plans got thrown into the dumpster. The intervening years weren’t lost, though, and the game that had been Dangerous Driving 2 is now something bigger and crazier in the form of Wreckreation.
Wreckreation is a high-speed arcade racer that’s as much about coming in first as it is treating your opponents like explosive pinballs. Each race takes place on the open roads of a large map, roughly 400 square kilometers, covering beaches, woodlands and mountains, complete with traffic that can be shunted into opponents or accidentally barreled into head-on at high speed. It’s a highly-aggressive form of racing that rewards any destructive impulse you can successfully pull off, with the disclaimer that everyone else is trying to do the same thing to you. The only real consequence of a fiery crash is lost time, rather than a couple hundred thousand in automotive expenses and a small coffin for whatever remains can be squeegeed off the pavement, so other than potentially losing a few places there isn’t a lot of downside to driving like a lunatic.
The PAX East demo for Wreckreation mostly focused on the racing, giving only a small taste of the twist that will be a huge part of the gameplay. The driving was a huge amount of fun, and it felt instantly familiar tearing down the road while weaving in and out of traffic, targeting other racers to knock them into the railings, and using the boost to reach truly excessive speeds. The handbrake will take getting used to, and I found myself oversteering more easily than expected, but even with adjusting to that on the fly, the old Burnout reflexes came back to earn first place in what I assume was an easy race for the public showing. There was also a free-roam mode available to explore the map with, which was great for finding ramps and other stunt props hiding in the world.
The big feature of Wreckreation, however, is an editor that’s designed to be used either on the fly, littering the track with props that can either help with shortcuts or cut off opponents, or used at a more relaxed pace to create intricate tracks of your own design. The PAX East demo just had a small ramp and concrete barrier available, but the full game will let you edit everything up to creating Trackmania-styled giant stunt courses in the sky. The in-game editor is easy to use, requiring the plus pad to navigate its menus and not much else, so while it may require multitasking to both race and edit at the same time, a little practice should yield impressive shenanigans. Wreckreation promises a huge amount of arcade-style racing action divided between exploring the basic map and building your own monstrous courses, with brutal takedowns and epic air-time being equally necessary in the endless quest for first place.
