Ward And Sperry Leave Criterion

The co-founders of Criterion Games, Alex Ward and Fiona Serry, have left the developer to set up a new company.

“Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry have decided to leave EA,” a spokesperson told Polygon. “We appreciate their many contributions through the years and wish them well in their future endeavours.”

“The incredibly creative and talented team at Criterion are hard at work on a new project for next-gen consoles as new IP continues to be a major priority across EA.  Matt Webster is leading development of the new game and the Criterion studio moving forward. Matt has been part of Criterion for years and has an exciting vision for this new game.”

Criterion recently downsized quite dramatically, many staff left voluntarily and moved to the new Ghost Games studio who took over development duties on the Need for Speed franchise.

The next project from Criterion is not a racing game and has the codename Project Zero.

https://twitter.com/AlexanderJWard/status/419136158325809153

Source: Polygon

7 Comments

  1. Good luck to them, when it’s time to start afresh, it’s time.

    Criterion peaked for me with B3:Takedown, and no arcade racer has come close since. Hopefully when EA are ready to start again they’ll be able to do the series more justice than has been done in the last couple of iterations.

    I’ll be looking forward to seeing whatever the pair work on next. Hopefully they can shake up whatever genre that may be in the same way that Burnout did the arcade racer.

  2. The most important thing is that they’ve left the EA need for speed conveyor belt.

  3. Have they said which platforms they’re developing for?

  4. Criterion is pretty much dead, lets face it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they folded completely soon.
    To be fair, they’ve not made anything compelling since Burnout Paradise, and Black before that.

  5. But who owns the rights to Burnout? EA? If that is the case, I fear if we are ever going to see another Burnout Paradise game and what quality that will be in.

    • I think it’s EA who own the rights. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see a yearly rotation between NFS and Burnout.

      I’m still holding a small hope that we might see a decent Burnout game at some point in the future, though I fear that ship sailed when the open-world method of delivery for arcade racers became the norm.

  6. Best of luck to them in their new endeavours, maybe a fresh start without restriction is just what the doctor ordered.
    What Criterion created with the spellbinding Burnout Paradise and the magical journey that ensued hasn’t been replicated or equalled to this day sadly.

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