Since it's been announced that this game will be open world I'm curious if this game will have collection elements or at least have the crazy stunt sandbox feel that Burnout Paradise did. I'm a bit concerned that the only footage and information I can find on this game is about the events and am worried that the open world might just serve as a glorified menu. I remember before Burnout Paradise was released, Criterion went into great detail about what you could do in the open world. Why is that not happening here?

the playable open world is an afterthought thrown in...it's only useful for the one on one chase mode as you can go anywhere to outrun the competition. you can go to free roam if you want but there is nothing to do there but drive around...kind of a bummer as i think they could have at least thrown in cops in free roam or random racer encounters if you play cop free roam.

At the most, you could use it to take nice dreamshots of your car on the road, or find and practice taking shortcuts.

I'm just going to drive around unlocking short cuts or something. I randomly drove around in Paradise for no reason and I'm going to do the same here.

" At the most, you could use it to take nice dreamshots of your car on the road, or find and practice taking shortcuts. "

as you know, there is freeway mode for every course. for practice, it's kind of helping me to beat the game. 

@Sin4profit said:

"the playable open world is an afterthought thrown in...it's only useful for the one on one chase mode as you can go anywhere to outrun the competition. you can go to free roam if you want but there is nothing to do there but drive around...kind of a bummer as i think they could have at least thrown in cops in free roam or random racer encounters if you play cop free roam. "

Yep. I would like to see DLC that will add option to turn on/off cops or racers to free ride mode, depending from are you playing as a cop or as a racer.

So let me get this strait.  there is an open world mode but the game is not an open world like the last burnout game?  this is good and what I want to hear.  I think the open world thing fun but I would rather just have a list of tracks and races to choose from.

Yes, the open-world part seems to be completely optional and only be there to help you find shortcuts on the tracks without having to worry about the competition. I'd personally love to see some enhancements there, though. Something like a quick way to jump to other roads or even just a map that shows you where you actually are (and I don't mean the mini-map that shows you the next turn ;-)). Also, some hidden stuff would be nice :-)