Criterion Games

Criterion Games grew out of Criterion Software, the company David Lau-Kee set up in the UK in December 1993 as a subsidiary of Canon, with Adam Billyard as chief technology officer and co-founder. Its product was RenderWare, a 3D graphics library that 800 companies had adopted by October 1996. Because rival Argonaut was making full games to show off its own technology, Criterion Software formed a dedicated game development division in Guildford in January 1996: Criterion Studios.

The third version of RenderWare (2000) was the first to work as a complete game engine, and the first game built on it was Burnout (2000), made by the studio itself. Acclaim published Burnout and Burnout 2: Point of Impact (2002), while Criterion kept the brand and the technology. Electronic Arts published Burnout 3: Takedown (2004) and that same year bought the whole group from Canon Europe, closing the deal on 19 October 2004. The shooter Black followed two years later (2006).

Under EA the studio moved on to Need for Speed with Hot Pursuit (2010), built on a new engine called Chameleon, and Most Wanted (2012); at E3 2012 it announced it had taken sole charge of the series. In 2013 most of the team moved to Ghost Games UK, and in January 2014 Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry left to found Three Fields Entertainment. Criterion then focused on supporting other EA studios: a virtual reality mission for Star Wars Battlefront, the battle royale mode of Battlefield V and the vehicle gameplay of Battlefield 2042 (2021).

In May 2022 EA merged Codemasters Cheshire into Criterion to finish Need for Speed Unbound (2022), built on the Frostbite engine. In September 2023 the studio moved into EA Entertainment to support the Battlefield series, and in August 2025 it was renamed Criterion – A Battlefield Studio. It is still based in Guildford and owned by Electronic Arts.