Burnout developer almost made an F-Zero Wii U game

F-Zero is long overdue a revival. Let's mourn one that slipped through our fingers.

Burnout developer Criterion games once had the chance to develop a new F-Zero game for Nintendo.

The project was offered to the EA-owned studio in 2011, but the team had its hands full with Need for Speed: Most Wanted and couldn't take it on.

Nintendo Everything heard the story from an anonymous source but received confirmation from Criterion co-founder Alex Ward.

Apparently the team was asked to produce a vertical slice demo to show at E3 2011 alongside the Wii U. It's likely we would have had an F-Zero Wii U game in our hot little hands in 2013, if the stars had been aligned.

Having handed Need for Speed off to Ghost Games, Criterion is supposed to be working on an untitled new racing IP with a variety of vehicle types. We haven't seen or heard anything of it since its E3 2014 announce, and Criterion was roped into assisting with Battlefield: Hardline, which makes us wonder if it might not become one of EA's jobbing teams.

Criterion has lost a significant number of senior staff to Ghost Games, as well as its co-founders, who have gone indie.