
Players take on multiple event types over the course of the game, including Race, Road Rage, and Crash Mode. This adds a new layer to the game, slowing down the normally intensely high-speed feel in order to get some post-crash satisfaction.

New features include Impact Time, which allows players to slow time after a crash in order to direct their mangled frame of a car around the road and, ideally, hit other cars for an Aftertouch Takedown. But the game does have several new features that make it more than the "racing game plus big crashes" formula used in the past. Takedown is similar in structure to its predecessor, Burnout 2: Point of Impact.

Initially available for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, the game was also released in downloadable form as an Xbox Original on the Xbox 360 in early 2008. Previous entries were published by Acclaim. Released on September 7, 2004, Burnout 3: Takedown is the first Burnout title to be published under the EA banner and the first to receive a T rating from the ESRB.
