Ruffian Wants To Make 'Crackdown 3'
By Jasmine Henry 26 December 2013
In the history of Xbox exclusives, not many franchises stand above Crackdown in terms of popularity and desire for sequels. It’s a series made up of two games which put players right in the heart of the crime-infested setting of Pacific City, in which they play as an overpowered cop tasked with helping the place clean up its act. The first foray into virtual justice, back in 2007, saw the Realtime Worlds developed game, Crackdown 1, receive high review scores across the board and the game had sold 1.5 million copies around the world by the end of its debut year.
Crackdown 2 however, was not such a pretty picture for developer Ruffian Games who took over the series, as the second Xbox 360 exclusive title saw the team put under a lot of pressure to deliver. They did not; receiving lower scores and selling less. However, despite the series’ fall from grace, gamers are still as hungry as ever for Crackdown 3 and it seems that Ruffian is interested in making it, and making up for their previous effrt.
The news that Ruffian is very much interested in making a sequel for their flagship franchise comes from an interview with Eurogamer in which series producer, Jim Cope reveals, “I want to see another Crackdown as well. I really do.” The statement follows a teasing glimpse of what appeared to be a Crackdown 3 related image, used in the Xbox One reveal press conference last May. At the time that led Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer to effectively confirm work on the game, telling press that “There’s a real neat opportunity to bring that genre and game forward onto the new generation,” explaining that Microsoft are looking for a third development team to take over and make Crackdown 3.
Also in conjunction with Spencer’s statement is the rumor from last month that Crackdown 3 might have a 2016 release date and will be trotted out for an announcement reveal at E3 this year. The days until E3 2014 are rapidly counting down now, so perhaps it could be a case of Ruffian dipping their marketing toes into the water, to gauge the would be reception of a series without a release in almost half a decade
While Ruffian certainly seem ready to take on the series again, Cope also revealed that Crackdown 2’s reception “was a real shame” and that despite the game being “a hard development for [the team]”, they were “really proud of it.” Pride may only get Ruffian so far however, as the hopefulness of a Crackdown 3 release is actively hindering their ability to develop Game of Glens, an indie title (currently part of Square Enix’s pre-crowdfunding marketing project) which just 39% of fans said that they would be willing to crowdfund, statistics, Cope believes, that are due to fans of the dev preferring to see them work on Crackdown 3 instead.
Where Crackdown 3 goes from here is, unfortunately for fans, anyone’s guess but judging by the mindset of both Ruffian and Microsoft, it sounds like Crackdown 3 is scheduled to land on Xbox One at some point in the future, it’s just a matter of when…
_____
Source: Eurogamer
