Aside from standard circuit races, the game features modes focused on performing Takedowns on rival vehicles and causing monetary damage at a junction occupied with traffic.

Each game variant is featured in a single-player campaign mode called World Tour, which serves as the primary method for unlocking new and faster cars.

The addictive gameplay and visuals were widely praised by reviewers, many of whom ranked Burnout 3: Takedown among the best games released on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

In Impact Time, the Aftertouch mechanic can be used to manoeuvre the wrecked car chassis into an opponent to get a Takedown, which acts as a recovery move by negating the penalty of crashing.

[2] Road Rage is a new game mode in which the player must achieve a certain number of Takedowns in a preset time limit or before their vehicle is totalled.

[2] The goal of Crash mode is to create the largest amount of monetary damage in a multi-vehicle collision at a junction full of traffic.

Cash bonuses, score multipliers, a speed boost, or an immediate Crashbreaker can be obtained by driving through power-ups that lie on the junction in Crash mode.

The online version is a team-based mode that supports up to six players and the objective is to destroy the rival team's cars before a certain number of miles have been driven.

[11] The studio suffered several setbacks during the sequence of events that led up to the creation of Burnout 3, including the cancellation of a project, a failed pitch, and a fall out with the game's eventual publisher Electronic Arts (EA).

[12] At the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Criterion Games' director of design Alex Ward was approached by Bruce McMillan, executive vice president at EA Worldwide Studios.

The development team had drafted several subtitles for Burnout 3 including Fuel Injection, Crash and Burn, Seek and Destroy, Takedown along with some more ridiculous suggestions like See You in Hell.

[17] Ward noted that EA's snowboarding video game series SSX was an influence for Burnout 3's bolder and brasher nature.

This approach to the game's design led to the introduction of Takedowns, a feature that rewarded the player with boost and points for knocking their opponents off the track.

At first, the team were not convinced by the idea of having the game's camera pan to show the crash of a taken out vehicle while the player was driving, but once it was implemented, they agreed that the feature worked well.

They wanted to include ramps in crash events so that vehicles could fly into traffic, but the game's physics system was designed to push cars down on the track to prevent them from taking off during a race.

They opted to run the game at thirty frames per second during these instances and dramatically increased the number of particles and debris that were rendered.

[21] Options were added to modify which songs play during a race or on the menu screen, and the Xbox version supports custom soundtracks.

[38][39] GameSpot editor Jeff Gerstmann opened his review by calling Burnout 3: Takedown one of the best racing games of all time, noting that it stood out among contemporaries in the diverse and expanding genre.

[2] Edge magazine regarded Burnout 3 to be Criterion's finest work to date; they thought the studio had demonstrated their proficiency by revising the series structure and dynamic.

[7] GamesTM awarded it a perfect score; they proclaimed that Burnout 3 was without a doubt the greatest racing game ever made and described playing it as the most fun they had ever had in the genre.

[3] GameSpy reviewer Miguel Lopez, who also awarded the game a perfect score, remarked that it was possibly the best arcade racer ever made.

[3][4][8] Reviewers admired the impact that Takedowns had in transforming the boost mechanic and shifting the game's focus to a more aggressive style of driving.

[3][4] GamesTM pointed out that the hostile behaviour of AI rivals supplemented the system by presenting more opportunities to perform Takedowns, culminating in an intense and dramatic racing experience.

[4] Mirabella and Reed both complimented the balance and variation of events in World Tour,[6][43] and GamesTM was pleased with the amount of content featured in the single-player component.

Some writers found the DJ's enthusiastic dialogue to be annoying and had mixed opinions on the songs included in the soundtrack, but were thankful for the available audio customisation options.

[60] The game performed strongly in Japan, achieving 32,000 sales during launch week and debuted in second place on the software charts.

Revenge retained Takedowns but continued to evolve the aggressive style of driving by introducing new features such as the ability to knock traffic out of the way and into opponents.

[27][65][66] Edge magazine called the game a pivotal moment for the series and reflected positively on the fundamental changes that had Criterion made in designing it.

[67][68] They praised the game for being balanced all round while noting that later instalments like Revenge and Dominator had pushed the series too far in a particular direction, consequently diluting a lot of what Burnout 3 had accomplished.

[65] In the same year, USgamer listed Burnout 3: Takedown as the twelfth best game since 2000, stating that it remained at the forefront of the arcade racing genre.