Games in the series include:
- FlatOut (2004) — Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC
- FlatOut 2 (2006) — Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC
- FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage (2007) — PC and Xbox 360; remaster of 2
- FlatOut: Head On (2008) — PlayStation Portable; semi-remaster of 2
- FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage Collector's Edition (2024) — PC; remaster of the original Ultimate Carnage
- FlatOut (2010) — Nintendo Wii
- FlatOut 3: Chaos and Destruction (2011) — PC
- FlatOut Stuntman (2013) — iOS
- FlatOut 4: Total Insanity (2017) — Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC
See also Bugbear's Spiritual Successor, Wreckfest. Not to be confused with Fallout.
FlatOut contains examples of:
- 100% Completion: The game helpfully displays your percent-completion rate.
- Artificial Stupidity: Exaggerated in some of FlatOut 3's game modes. In regular races, the AI rarely bothers to brake and ends up ricocheting off every wall in sight; in demolition derbies, the AI single-mindedly gangs up on you, invariably resulting in a massive burning dogpile in one corner of the map; and in one game mode, where the objective is to be the first to collect 40 barrels, the AI cars don't even try to compete with you and just sit there driving in circles.
- Ascended Meme: Frank Malcov became notorious within the FlatOut community for the crash happy behavior that his AI had. Ultimate Carnage Collector's Edition honored this with the achievement "Frank Malcov Award", obtainable by driving in such way that it "made Frank Malcov proud".
- Badass Longcoat: Justin Case from the third game wears one. However, the game's broken physics causes it to stretch and warp in Stunt Man events.
- Balance Buff: Nitro boost upgrades in 2 (and Head-On, since it directly retains its engine) reduces a lot of the car's strength (the bigger tiers had the potential of reducing the strength by half), making it a very unpopular upgrade option among the players. Ultimate Carnage buffed it by significantly reducing the strength penalty, making it a more viable choice for late-game.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: In 2 and its remasters, Ray Carter's bio in the loading screen has him being described as "skillful enough to win... if he feels like it". True to form, while Carter can finish on top of the pack, he finishes in the back more often than not.
- Captain Ersatz: Zario, a likable (according to the game) chubby Italian with a moustache. Sure sounds familiar.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In 2 and its remasters, every driver has a specific color applying to each driver's car & HUD arrow. The last four drivers only appeared in Ultimate Carnage and Collector's Edition.
- Jack Benton: Yellow
- Sofia Martinez: Silver
- Jason Walker: Black car color with flame decals, Pale Black HUD color
- Sally Taylor: White car color, Light Pink HUD colornote
- Katie Jackson: Red
- Frank Malcov: Blue
- Ray Carter: Cyan
- Jill Richards: Pink car color, Purple HUD color
- Lei Bing: Maroon/Dark Red
- Lewis Duran: Brown
- Curtis Wolfe: Black & White car color, Black HUD color
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
- In the later races of FlatOut 2, some of the drivers are noticeably faster than the cars that they are using have any right to be. Even if the player is using the same exact car and have it fully upgraded, they will still be outrun quite easily and quite substantially at that. Sofia Martinez and Jack Benton are perhaps the most glaring of these.
- Ultimate Carnage features a catch up boost system that makes certain the AI is always right on your tail, to increase the challenge for pro racers. This is made readily apparent in some tracks where the pack will actually teleport ALL the cars up behind you if you're performing too well, too fast. This is rare, however, and there are even times where you can lap some of the slower characters. But you can still imagine the horror when you suddenly see eleven cars appear from nowhere on the minimap behind you, and uncluster as they come after you.
- The Night Shift mode of FlatOut 3 takes place on a rainy, foggy night, limiting the player's visibility and grip. Your AI opponent, however, has no such difficulties, and can take turns significantly faster than you can.
- Subverted in FlatOut 3's demolition derby modes. The AI will continuously gang up on the player, who more often than not will get dogpiled into a corner, unable to move. However, because you earn points for collisions even if you're not the one that initiated them, and the game ends when you're wrecked, you can easily win or come close to winning with very little effort.
- Die, Chair, Die!: You can interact with a wide variety of objects on the courses, but there's nothing to do with them except smash into them.
- Difficult, but Awesome: The Flatmobile of FlatOut 2 is so comically fast that any typical player simply cannot control it. However, said acceleration is equally reciprocated in its brakes, and at sane speeds it can out-handle any vehicle in the game. In the hands of a truly skilled gamer, no other vehicle can possibly compete, even in the infamous destruction derbies.
- Drives Like Crazy: Considering there is a lot of crashing, of course everyone would be this.
- Special mention goes to Malcov in FlatOut 2 races. He is incredibly fast on pure pace despite having a habit of choosing the slowest and biggest cars of the first tier cars of each class; however, his driving style is so erratic that he will finish dead last most of the time because he crashed onto pretty much everything on the track.
- Eagleland: Frank Malcov's car has a USA flag's
stripes painted on the front. - Fauxrrari: All of the cars are given fictitious names. Some of them are readily identifiable as to their real-life counterparts, while others combine elements from multiple real-life models.
- In-Vehicle Invulnerability: The ragdoll driver can survive any crash unless he is thrown from the vehicle.
- Joke Character: The Chili from 2 and its remasters is intended to be one. It has good handling... and that's about it. The car's slow to accelerate, has a low top speed, poor nitro, weak strength, not heavy, and as a Tier 1 car in the Derby class, it has very little upgrade options. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's the cheapest car in the game and is also the car used in two really hard challenges: The final derby in Carnage Mode and the achievement "Real Habanero" in Collector's Edition, which requires you to win all Derby cups in a stock Chili.
- Nitro Boost: You have a Nitro meter that fills up as you crash into stuff and can be used for a speed boost.
- Ragdoll Physics: Exaggerated. Every time you crash, you're treated to a slow-mo cutscene of your driver getting thrown from the car. And on top of that, there are a whole selection of minigames that involve intentionally ejecting the driver to see how far or how accurately you can toss him.
- Recycled Title: FlatOut for the Wii.
- Rewarding Vandalism: You get Nitro for crashing into stuff. Also, see You Break It, You Profit.
- Shout-Out: The names of the some of the racers in Flatout 3 are references to other video game characters and real-life people such as Eva Mentoz, Zario the Mechanic, Katy Boxingsale, ThirtyFour Rupias, Jennifer Ellistor, Ufer Bull etc.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The snow tracks in the first game, with their reduced traction, fit the standard racing game variant of the trope.
- Thememobile: Cars used by Jill Richards will have "JILL" written on the side of the car.
- Updated Re-release:
- FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage is a complete remaster of FlatOut 2 that adds a new gamemode in Carnage Mode, extra cars, new characters, and a different soundtrack. It also changes the behavior of some of the cars.
- FlatOut: Head On is a semi-remaster of 2. It retains the engine from 2 and didn't feature the four extra opponents from Ultimate Carnage due to the PSP's limitations, but Carnage Mode was added and 2's soundtrack was swapped with UC's.
- FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage Collector's Edition is the PC-only remaster of the original Ultimate Carnage. It removes the original's Games for Windows LIVE DRM requirement and fixed several bugs and crashes. It also adds an achievement system, compatibility with Steam Deck and support for Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, French, German, Italian and Spanish languages.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The minigames, which center around intentionally tossing the ragdoll driver out of the vehicle.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: The AI in FlatOut 3's demolition derby modes relentlessly gangs up on the player, usually resulting in them being pinned against a wall by a mass of cars, but the scoring system doesn't take into account who initiates a collision, and the winner is the driver with the most points rather than the last driver standing. It's entirely possible to just sit there, let the AI pummel you into submission, and still win.
- Wreaking Havok: The game makes extensive use of its physics engine to render realistic vehicle damage and crashes and so on. See also Ragdoll Physics.
- You Are Number 6: In 2 and its remasters, every driver have a specific car number that is unique for their car only (i.e. any of the player's car don't have that number available for them). Note that the last four drivers only appeared in Ultimate Carnage and Collector's Edition.
- Jack Benton: 70
- Sofia Martinez: 19
- Jason Walker: 32
- Sally Taylor: 56
- Katie Jackson: 61
- Frank Malcov: 50
- Ray Carter: 88
- Jill Richards: 44
- Lei Bing: 28 (only in Race class)
- Lewis Duran: 28
- Curtis Wolfe: 33
- You Break It, You Profit: At the end of the race, you're given money based on how much damage you did to the track. Doing damage during the race also restores your supply of nitro - the more damage you do, the more nitro you receive.
