Despite publisher cutoff and studio closure, Wreckreation 2 is being made by Burnout veterans

Published Jul 21, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT City-based destructive racer recalls Burnout Paradise Despite publisher cutoff and studio closure, Burnout veterans are keeping the dream alive with Wreckreation 2 Image: When Tides Turn Fiona Sperry refuses to give up the dream of making more arcade racing games in the style of Burnout. Despite a crushing setback when publisher THQ Nordic cut off support for her last attempt, Wreckreation, dooming the game to failure and her studio to closure, she's back with a new studio and a sequel, Wreckreation 2. Sperry oversaw the much-loved Burnout games, which fuse high-speed arcade racing with spectacular and destructive crashes, as studio head at the UK's Criterion Games — all the way from the 2001 original to the 2008 classic Burnout Paradise. After Criterion owner EA turned its back on the series in favor of Need for Speed, Sperry left to form Three Fields Entertainment with other Criterion veterans. The scrappy indie worked its way up through Burnout spiritual successors Danger Zone and Dangerous Driving before releasing the open-world Wreckreation in October last year. Then disaster struck. In December, just a few weeks after the game came out, Sperry announced that THQ Nordic had withdrawn all its support for the game and studio — seemingly before the game even came out. She was forced to put the whole team on notice of redundancy. "As an independent studio, we will not see revenue from game sales for the foreseeable future," Sperry wrote at the time. "We have had to self-fund most of this year and all of the post launch content. Without the enthusiasm or financial support from our publisher to continue development, we simply cannot sustain the studio in its current form." Somehow, a skeleton crew at Three Fields kept updates for Wreckreation coming, but after launching in a rough state, it never reached its full potential. Sperry is not to be deterred, however. She has opted for a fresh start at a new studio, When Tides Turn, staffed by Three Fields veterans. The team is already making Wreckreation 2 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. There's no release date yet, but, perhaps to prove a point, When Tides Turn shared an early playable build of the game with Polygon. It's certainly not deviating from the Burnout formula. Wreckreation 2 is an ultra-fast-paced driving game with twitchy handling, aggressive AI, a pronounced boost mechanic, and extravagant crash physics, where the aim is as much to force your opponents into wipeouts as it is to beat them on the track. In fact, Wreckreation 2 hews even closer to Burnout Paradise than the previous game. Wreckreation took place on a large, open, rural map and had a strong focus on user-generated content, allowing players to create looping stunt tracks reminiscent of the Trackmania games or Forza Horizon's Hot Wheels tie-ins. Wreckreation 2, like Paradise, is mostly set in a city; the demo build features a compact downtown area, but When Tides Turn says it will expand to include docklands, an airport, highways, and back roads in time. As in Paradise, you can freely explore the city finding Smash Gates or participate in events: right now, these include races, 1v1 face-offs, destruction-focused Road Rages, and Wreckoning time trials. Coming later will be Blackspots, Eliminator, Marked Man, and Pursuit modes. When Tides Turn says the first game's creation modes will return, too, although the map seems less suited to them at present. When Tides Turn says that it's collaborating closely with the Wreckreation community on the game. "Over the last six months we've been talking directly to players about what they want from a modern arcade driving game, and Wreckreation 2 is the result of those conversations," Sperry said in a statement. "From handling and progression to events and world design, our community has already helped shape key aspects of the experience. We're building this game with the players, not just for them." It's fair to say that, during the Three Fields Entertainment years, Sperry's team never seemed to quite have the focus or resources to match the Burnout games made by Criterion during its 2000s glory days. But their passionate dedication to this particular brand of arcade racing is remarkable and admirable. After Wreckreation's ignominious fate, the odds seem even further stacked against them, but they simply won't take no for an answer. Hopefully, this time, they'll win out.