Trophies, Timed Challenges for Burnout Paradise

Second week on the blog – and what a week it’s been!

Here at Criterion, it was great to get the news that the Codename: Cagney update for Burnout Paradise has passed through submission at Sony Europe. That’s a great place to be in. Next step – get the “okay” in the USA and we’ll be sure to be hitting our deadline of 10th July for this awesome FREE pack of game-changing content.

Also, the third episode of our video podcast, CRASH TV is blowing the roof off the iTunes charts with its combination of exclusive footage, news, and details of upcoming PlayStation-specific features.

And talking of upcoming PlayStation-specific features, we’d like to confirm here that Criterion WILL be supporting PlayStation Trophies in a future update of Burnout Paradise. It won’t be the Codename: Cagney update, but Trophies will be coming to Paradise soon.

Now, if that wasn’t enough excitement for the week, we thought we’d talk about Timed Challenges – a new feature that’s coming to Burnout Paradise online in Codename: Cagney that gives you even more ways for you and your online friends to get together and have amazing fun with cars.

If you’ve not played Burnout Paradise before, you may not know about what we call “Freeburn” or “Freeburn Challenges.” So if you haven’t, here’s the deal:

Burnout Paradise is about having fun with cars in a massive, open-world city. Sure, it’s about racing and other game modes, but one of the things that really sets Paradise apart is “Freeburn.” Up to eight players meet online to just mess around in their cars – see who can drift the furthest, get the most air, spins, barrel rolls, drive furthest in oncoming traffic, etc.

Freeburn Challenges are a part of that mode – special challenges that the host of the online game can activate for everyone to do together.

A challenge can be anything from simply driving in oncoming traffic or finding a billboard and smashing it, to lining up all of your teammates and jumping over them. It’s about teamwork and having fun, and there are 350 of these challenges to play with.

Now, Timed Challenges are a new set of 70 Freeburn Challenges that are coming with the Codename: Cagney update that add an extra, but exciting, element – a timer.

When a Timed Challenge is started, players must meet in a specified place within Paradise City. Once there, a timer begins to count down and the team of players must race to complete a challenge in the world in the shortest time possible. If you’re all successful and beat the clock, your best time is put on a leaderboard.

Sounds simple? It is, but it’s loads of fun, and that leaderboard drives everyone back for “just one more go” because you know you can shave a few more seconds off your best time!

And talking of countdowns, it’s just over 9 days to go before you can check it out when Codename: Cagney is released as a free update.

(These exclusive screenshots show a Timed Challenge in progress – here, two new Codename: Cagney cars – a Rossolini Tempesta Dream and a Hunter Steel Oval Champ meet up in a basketball court by the beach and must to leap off the roof of a car park on the far side of the city.)