It has not been an easy ride for the much-troubled Crackdown 3. The third installment of the cel-shaded action series was originally announced at E3 2014. We were meant to be playing the Terry Crews-led game way back in 2016, but, according to people close to the project, we now won’t be playing Crackdown 3 until next year. Another blow to Microsoft’s patchy first-party lineup.
It is reported that Crackdown 3 has suffered yet another setback (via Kotaku). We’ve been waiting to play the game for four years, and it looks like we’ll now be waiting for five. Early release dates pointed towards a 2016 release before Microsoft announced last year that Crackdown 3 would launch alongside the Xbox One X last November. A shoddy showing at E3 and bad development issues, however, led to further delays. We have now passed, or are about to, the vague Spring 2018 release Microsoft had in store for us. There is still no sign of Terry Crews animated character leaping, driving and shooting around a cel-shaded neon-drenched cityscape.
Crackdown 3 Delay Another Blow to Microsoft’s First-Party Lineup
Kotaku’s anonymous sources claim that we won’t be playing Crackdown 3 until next year and that’s a real shame. The Xbox One has struggled to maintain momentum with the PS4 and Switch in terms of first-party output. Sure, we’ve been given State of Decay 2 and Sea of Thieves, but little else. Arguably neither of these titles lived up to the hype, but that’s subjective and up to you to decide. What is poor from Microsoft is the number of high-profile cancellations. A Phantom Dust remake, Fable Legends (along with the subsequent closure of Lionhead Studios), and Scalebound have all been canned.
Things haven’t been going all too well for Microsoft in terms of first-party output and Crackdown 3 looked to round out the year. While we don’t know for certain whether or not the game has been delayed, we won’t have long to find out with E3 right around the corner. Hopefully, Microsoft has something good lying in wait for us.
