The Continued Disappointment of Crackdown 3

Crackdown 3 has become an unlikely champion of the Xbox first party and its constant delays since it was first announced in 2014 have continued to disappoint fans of the game and the platform. For those unfamiliar with the series, it's an open world wild shooter where agents grow by performing skills within the game. This is best matched with the phrase, "Skills for Kills, Agent. Skills for Kills." which is from the series' voice over announcer. The game was originally just called Crackdown until it was given the third number during Gamescom 2015 to make the series a trilogy.

It was supposed to be the first game to truly show off the power of the Xbox Cloud which has all but disappeared since. It's been sitting there for a long time and in an era where Xbox has next to no exclusives it's become somewhat of a big deal. This is rather odd as the franchise has never been quite at that level of being a big deal. I personally love the series, but I know it isn't a Halo, Gears or Forza game and to see it in the spotlight like it is must present a lot of pressure towards the game. I'll certainly enjoy it like I did at E3 2017 since it's Crackdown, but I know not to expect too much from it.


With expectations running high for Crackdown 3 I'm worried the game isn't going to come close to hitting those goals and it'll just get a storm of hate directed towards it. There's a lot running on the game for Xbox since there are few other games and its depressing to see it be what Xbox is basically riding on at this point.

It is also getting more attention in what's become a regular thing for Microsoft, to continuously delay games and then eventually cancel them. I would believe that this game is safe to release since its been in development so long and is one of the last Xbox owned IPs that are not the holy trinity in development. I just can't assume that's the case anymore since I've seen Scalebound vanish, Fable die (mad tears) and so many other games get pushed back. It is also best to keep in mind that it got delayed very close to what was supposed to be an official launch.

I don't really trust Xbox to deliver anymore and that's a sad state, at least for me. I've seen so many cancellations, delays or removals of services from the console that it's become numbing. I feel as though we should have known something was up at E3 2017 since multiplayer wasn't showcased and the campaign presentation didn't really show any actual story, at least from what I saw there.

I do like the Crackdown series and I hope three delivers if does ever release. Might soon become titled Crackdown 3: Forever. It is just going to have a lot more attention on it than it should have and more pressure than I think the series can handle. This should be more of a supplementary game in your exclusive release schedule and now it's become the biggest release on Xbox's current schedule.

Read Why Gears of War 4 is the Best Example of Xbox's Direction
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