Burnout Paradise Remastered Performance Review and Graphics Comparison

Conclusion  

Burnout Paradise is considered to be a classic by many gamers, offering a mix of high-octane action and vehicular destruction across a variety of environments.

As a remake, Burnout Paradise: Remastered sits amongst the better re-releases of recent memory. Don’t get us wrong, this isn’t a full-on reimagining like the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy, but it offers more than enough graphical enhancements to be worth considering, especially if you enjoy gaming at 4K. 

Graphically, Burnout Paradise Remastered offers a wide range of graphical improvements over its 2008 counterpart, most of with make playing the game a much more pleasing experience on high-resolution displays. Page 4 includes several interactive sliders that compare Burnout Paradise’s “The Ultimate Box” and the game’s 2018 remaster.

For starters, the game’s menus and world map have been re-created to offer the same visual style as the original, with the primary benefit being increased sharpness at high resolutions. Burnout Paradise’ minimap has never looked sharper, which is something that applies at 1080p and even 4K. 

Texture resolution is another area that has seen a significant rework, with most of the game’s commonly used textures receiving high detail replacements. Road surfaces look better, buildings appear more realistic, and the fewer details appear pixelated than when playing the original PC version, something which makes the game much easier to play at 4K. 

Another area that is worth talking about is shadows, which appear much sharper on Burnout’s latest release, with the title’s Ambient Occlusion also seeing a significant upgrade. These changes apply to both vehicle shadows as well as world shadows, allowing structures like wire fences to create realistic shadows where none were present previously. 

Reflections also see a notable boost in detail, drawing details from more objects than before, making the effect much more accurate. When combined with the game’s other graphical enhancements, this extra detail makes Burnout Paradise a more pleasing visual experience, even at 1080p.     

Aside from the game’s graphical upgrades, the title has also received a content boost over the game’s “The Ultimate Box” Edition, adding the title’s “Big Surf Island” DLC to the game’s PC version for the first time. This will be the first time where PC gamers have been able to access Burnout Paradise’s full-fat experience, with no console-exclusive content. 

As a Remaster, this release of Burnout Paradise offers enough graphical enhancements to be worth considering over the PC original, especially if you game at high resolutions and find pixelated textures and blurred graphical features annoying. Series veterans may also want to see the games new Big Surf Island location and all of the content hidden within, which was previously inaccessible to PC gamers.   

Pricing-wise, the full game will be available on August 21st for £17.99, with a 10-hour trail being available to Origin Access Subscribers, which is £3.99 per month or £19.99 per year. Origin Access Premier users will gain access to the full game, with a subscription costing £14.99 per month of £89.99 per year. Both Origin Access and Premier Subscribers can already play Burnout Paradise Remastered.  

Existing owners of the PC original, who have signed into multiplayer servers with their EA account, will also receive a 75% discount for the game’s PC remaster, though this offer will expire on September 21st.    

You can join the discussion on Burnout Paradise Remastered’s PC Performance and Graphics on the OC3D Forums.