Crackdown 3
Crackdown 3 was first announced in 2014. It was eventually released in 2019 after multiple delays, and leadership changes, Cloudgine being the principal developer before Sumo Digital was eventually revealed to be in charge, and so on. Did we mention numerous other studios that helped on the title like Reagent Games, Double Eleven, Climax Studios, Ruffian Games and Certain Affinity?
All of this, just to deliver a campaign mode with visuals from the Xbox 360 era to match an outdated gameplay loop of “complete activities and then go kill the boss.” It was so completely thrown together that one could assume the campaign was developed in a handful of months. But perhaps the biggest issue was the promise of cloud-based destruction.
Way back in 2014, Phil Spencer talked about utilizing the power of the cloud for a fully destructible city. It sounded unbelievable, which turned out to be completely accurate. Eventually, this was shifted to Wrecking Zone, a multiplayer mode where almost the entire map could be destroyed. The player base quickly died for the same because it was little more than a gimmick without any actual gameplay hooks. Some could probably appreciate Crackdown 3 for its old-school throwback approach but considering it to be a good game worth all of the years of development and hype was a stretch for many.
