If you were holding out on playing the latest installment in the Crackdown franchise this year then you were met with disappointment. It was revealed prior to E3 this year that Microsoft Studios and developers Reagent Games opted to delay the game to at some point in 2017. Now we’re finding out why the delay was originally placed on the game as it turns out the campaign for Crackdown 3 is still very much in development.
Making an open world video game that has an online aspect to it can be a daunting task, though it was not fully revealed as to why the development team decided to delay Crackdown 3. Game Informer was present at this year’s E3 event and it was finally unveiled as to why we’re not getting a Crackdown release this year.
Speaking to Microsoft Studios general manager, Shannon Loftis, Game Informer was told about the early development process when it came to the normal campaign.
“Development has been going incredibly well. I’ve actually been playing a ton of it,” she told me. “To be honest, because we obviously have this Crackdown Online mode and then we also have the traditional Crackdown campaign, which has multiplayer online. But we want to launch our online beta so that it’s not too far in advance of the complete campaign. It’s actually the campaign that we’re doubling down on now. We’ve got internal play sessions every week for Crackdown Online. We’re starting now to get the campaign in. Building these open world games is both challenging and a blast, because you have to build all of the systems that interact together. Before you get to the point where you can actually experience what the game feels like and can start building your missions and telling your stories.
So the Crackdown campaign is definitely the most fully featured campaign we’ve ever done. It’s basically running a sim on top of the traditional Crackdown environment. We created this thing called a ‘hate table.’ Depending on what you choose to destroy in the environment, there will be massive, big reactions all over the city. Gangs will get together against you. This is the first time we’ve ever had something like that. It’s just starting to come online. We have lots of time to put together our missions. I don’t like letting gamers down and asking them to wait, but I’m also kind of proud of giving developers the time they need.”
For now, we’ll have to wait and see just when the official release date for Crackdown 3 will be. However, we do know that the title will be releasing on Xbox One and PC.
