Meanwhile, competitor Argonaut Software developed full games—including FX Fighter and Alien Odyssey–to showcase its BRender technology.

The division, Criterion Studios, was established in January 1996 and announced the month thereafter, at the time employing 25 people.

Publishing rights to the game were sold to Acclaim Entertainment, while Criterion Studios retained the intellectual property to the brand and technology.

Despite this, Acclaim lacked the resources to market them in the United States, its home territory, leading to poor sales in the country.

In early March 2007, Electronic Arts combined its Chertsey-based UK development studio and Criterion Games into a new building in central Guildford.

[8] In November 2007, co-founder and CEO David Lau-Kee made the decision to leave Electronic Arts to concentrate on advisory activities within the games industry.

[14] On 28 April 2013, Alex Ward announced via Twitter that the studio is planning to steer away from its tradition of developing racing games and is instead focusing on other genres for future projects.

[16][17] On 3 January 2014, it was announced that Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry left Criterion to found a new studio,[18] Three Fields Entertainment.

However, the project was cancelled as Criterion is now focusing on providing additional support to other EA studios in creating future Star Wars games.

[21] In June 2015, news site Nintendo Life revealed that in early 2011 Nintendo of Europe approached Criterion to work on a pitch for a new F-Zero game which they hoped to unveil at E3 that same year alongside the then-unreleased Wii U console, and potentially release the game during the console's launch period.

[22] Alex Ward also noted on Twitter that Criterion was also offered the opportunity to work on the first Forza, Mad Max, a Vauxhall only racer, a Command & Conquer first-person shooter and a Gone in 60 Seconds game.