#Crackdown 3 xbox one release date Pc#
#Crackdown 3 xbox one release date series#

It feels like a great multiplayer mode that, if it has the support in terms of maps and expansion, could become a fan favorite. Wrecking Zone is all about positioning, and I love it. Positioning is even important in death, since the score isn't registered until your 'tags' are picked up by either a team mate or an enemy, which will either register or neutralize the score. On the flip side, when a player locks on to you (indicated by a red laser sight on your agent), your best option is often to ground-pound through the floor to a lower level or dash through a wall to make a quick escape. If you're in closer quarters, simply smashing through a wall with a dash might do the trick. As a cowardly rival ducks into a building when they're one shot from death, a quick switch to a heavy weapon could blast the wall clean out, allowing for that final killing shot. Sometimes this means making use of that destruction. Within a few matches I quickly learned the aim of this game: shooting in Crackdown is lock-on, so it's all about positioning yourself for the best shot while getting the drop on people so they can't get a lock on you. In Crackdown you've always been able to do the latter, of course, but the former is what the new destruction technology allows - and it leads to some deeply satisfying moments in a multiplayer match. It's wargaming, basically, except with hench men and women punching through walls and jumping over buildings. Wrecking Zone is a five-on-five multiplayer deathmatch mode that sends agents out into a virtual reality training space to prepare for combat in the real world. It works, you know - but it's nowhere near what those early demos promised. Microsoft made a big deal out of Crackdown 3's cloud technology when the cloud was its big new buzzword for the Xbox One, and this mode is where you can see it in action in real time within a fully finished product. Single-player is largely a known quantity, then, but Wrecking Zone is where things get really interesting. All the guff that weighed down the first Crackdown sequel is gone, but so is the promise of a Crackdown structurally altered by the city-leveling destruction tech. It presents enough to suck you deeper into the Crackdown lore, such as it is, but simple enough to not get in the way of the simple joy of the franchise running around and deploying roid rage beatdowns on criminal scumbags. There's also a stronger narrative that toes the line well.

#Crackdown 3 xbox one release date Pc#

On a PC build I got to experience the campaign, which has a pretty simple premise: what if the original Crackdown, but better? I fully intend to write a more in-depth little look at the campaign in the near future alongside a video to match, but all you really need to know is that Crackdown 3 offers the same sort of madness as the first game but with a broader range of enemies and weapons within a larger city sandbox.

On Xbox One X over an hour's worth of games were spent in Wrecking Zone, the new multiplayer mode that deploys the cloud technology I was so bowled over by back in 2015. 'The nature of the mode means it takes place on more limited, enclosed maps with a stringent time limit, so the promise of being able to collapse a building and watch it topple into another to cause a domino effect simply can't be achieved.'Īt preview I got to play a solid chunk of the two sides of Crackdown 3. However, the cuts made and time taken to do so is likely to be debated for months.

#Crackdown 3 xbox one release date series#

But, as it finally nears release it does appear the Crackdown series has reclaimed its soul. Developers departing, followed by hefty delays and some very disappointing demos. It's fair to say that Crackdown 3 has had a rocky development. For inspiration, I look back at the first time I saw that game, a behind-closed-doors trade show demo of the impressive destruction technology powering the game's impressive new building collapsing technology. It would be easy to undersell and equally simple to oversell. Compiling my thoughts on Crackdown 3 after a few hours of hands-on time is difficult.