Wreckreation Knows You Want Another Burnout, So It'll Let You Build It (and Thousands of Other Things)
Three Fields Entertainment, the studio formed in 2014 by former Burnout Paradise creative director Alex Ward and Criterion studio director Fiona Sperry, began work on Wreckreation by just trying to imagine a giant open-world racing toybox. Having seen it in action, it's clear that it shares plenty of DNA with its creators’ previous work. The team built a huge map (“The largest map Unreal Engine lets you make is 440 square kilometers. We’re a team of just seven people… so we made the map 440 square kilometers”), created some cars, and began to play around inside.
Work began 18 months ago amid COVID lockdowns and the developers decided that, instead of Zoom meetings, they’d meet up inside their own game world, allowing themselves to test the game constantly, even while they discussed its future. One day, studio head Alex Ward wondered aloud about being able to place a ramp into the world, and if other players could build on top of it. His programmer asked him to give him 24 hours.
When they returned the next day, Wreckreation had effectively been born.
Rather than an open world, think of Wreckreation’s map as a canvas. It’s a gigantic area of snaking roads, shifting biomes, and interesting off-road spots. You can’t modify what’s already there, but you have hundreds of options for what to add to it. An in-game menu lets you stop driving and place everything from loop the loops to giant soccer balls - and other players in your world can do the same, while you do.
Right now, it’s unclear how many players will be able to share an instance of the game world. Ward says the studio has only tested with eight players so far, because his team is only seven people and they’ve only invited one other person from THQ Nordic to play it with
Read more on ign.com
