So we end up talking about where Criterion is going, about this studio's role in the future Sullivan envisages. "There's still a lot of stuff we want to do with driving," he says. " We will make another Burnout game at some point. Obviously, as we're working on NFS we're thinking of really good ideas that aren't right for this series; there are ideas that we're going to explore with Burnout. And we wouldn't be making NFS or Burnout games if we didn't think the driving genre had a long shelf life and that we could push the boundaries. There's a lot of new stuff in Most Wanted, a lot for people to get their heads around - and sometimes there's only so much explaining you can do - we've reined in some of the ideas we had for this game, they were a little ahead of their time".



Okay, I say, let's imagine you're going to tackle another classic game series, you can take anything you like – what would it be? "When we did Burnout Paradise we did some motorbike DLC and now everyone thinks that we're going to do Road Rash at some point," says Sullivan. "I had a lot of fun playing that game, we think bikes are fun. We might make a Road Rash game…. But then we might make a game without vehicles in it. I mean, we made Black, I was the lead designer – we might make a game about blowing the crap out of each other!"



He pauses and smiles, before pointedly adding, "but Road Rash seems like a good fit for Criterion…"