During an Extra Life stream spotted by NeoGAF user “Chris1,” the Xbox team revealed that Crackdown 3 will be launching by holiday 2017, and possibly even earlier.
Microsoft Studios director of production Jorg Neumann also confirmed that the game will run in 4K on Project Scorpio, but he stopped short of stating whether this would be a native 4K resolution or the upscaling we’ve seen on several PlayStation 4 Pro-enhanced games. It may have been implied to be the former, however: back in September, Microsoft stated that “any games” launching after Scorpio releases will render natively in 4K.
Crackdown 3 has largely been missing in action in 2016, skipping out on E3 2016 as creative director Dave Jones revealed that the game would be slipping into a 2017 release window.
The original Crackdown launched back in 2007 to a positive critical reception, though enthusiasm for the title was likely boosted by the game’s inclusion of the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. A sequel followed in 2010, but it was criticized for its blandness and lack of innovation over the original. Jones, whose studio Realtime Worlds developed the original but was not involved with Crackdown 2, expressed frustration that an outside developer was given the reigns. Soon after, the Realtime-developed APB: All Points Bulletin launched to negative reviews.
Hopefully, Crackdown 3 will successfully translate the brand onto a new generation of machines. Heavy cloud computing support allows for the game’s multiplayer maps to be completely, and intricately, destroyed. To preserve the challenge and focus of the game’s story component, this destruction will be largely absent from the single-player mode.
When Crackdown 3 launches next year, it will be a part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program, giving digital purchasers a copy for both Xbox One and Windows 10.
