https://kotaku.com/sources-microsoft-delays-crackdown-3-to-2019-1826622277

First planned for November 2017, then delayed to 2018, the long-troubled open-world action game Crackdown 3 will now be out in 2019, according to two people familiar with the game’s release plans. It’s an unusual move and another blow to Xbox’s already weak first-party lineup for the rest of 2018.

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Man, this game seems like a bit of a disaster. Microsoft also seems to be cursed this generation.

Dude...just cancel it already. People don't actually care about Crackdown this much Microsoft, it's ok to just be done with it.

Looking forward to reading about all the behind the scenes stuff concerning this project several years from now.

Maybe just let this one go.

And with that I stop caring....

Its clear that cant find a way to make it work. The first game was kinda hallow but fun which is a MUCH harder sell in 2018 video game land. Its dead.

Yeah, it's a bit weird they cancel something like Scalebound, which way more people (including me) seemed interested in, and yet seem hell bent on releasing a game most people seem luke warm on at best. I'll play a new Crackdown when/if it comes out but I cant say I was ever that excited about it.

Heres to hoping Microsoft have some new games or good news at e3.

Ouch.

Microsoft is doing so much right, but they just can't seem to get their first-party lineup together.

Man.

There's no way this ever makes a profit right? The only reason I can imagine they won't pull the plug is they don't want more cancellations under their belt.

Which I would say is still most important. All the powerful console stuff and old games doesn't matter when everyone is on PS4 and the exclusives people want are also there. The story of "I have an xbox but I never use it" seems so damn common.

Weirdly I feel like this game died immediately after they removed it's always online component. Wasn't that supposed to use cloud processing to enable the advanced destruction they showed off many years ago? Without that, so much of the potential of this game just feels wasted to me.

Man, it must be nice to work somewhere that apparently gets infinite extensions on their project, especially in this industry. My heart goes out to all the other employees at smaller studios that don't get this luxury and have to crunch like crazy to ship what they're working on by the deadline.

Im just interested to see what happebs to xbox now. 2 mediocre "exclusives" (are they exclusives if they release on pc?) and now this. What happens next?

I love Microsoft for thier commitment to backwards compatibility. Sure it's limited, but no one was demanding or expecting original Xbox games to be playable.

But it's ASTOUNDING how a company that so thoroughly dominated the last generation in terms of mindshare has been dropping the ball this badly and repeatedly. I feel like I've been hearing the story of Phil Spencer righting the ship for years but it still feels like paddling in circles. I don't actively hate my Xbox One purchase like some people I know but I just can't imagine any reason why I would ever turn it on when I have a PS4.

@bisonhero: Crunch is an unhealthy practice. This is obviously not the norm, plus I'm sure people there are worried they could get shutdown at any time.

Sunk cost falacy at this point.

Jeez. Well, what the fuck now, Microsoft? This is quite the hole you've found yourselves in. Do you plan on crafting a rope out of dirt, or digging your way out?

Seriously though, they really need to shape up and quick.

Oh wow, it'll be super interesting to see how Microsoft will or can spin this at E3. I'd quite like to play a new Crackdown game, but I don't feel like a lot of people are getting super excited for this.

Man, I feel bad for Phil Spencer. He's doing his best, but his predecessors lack of investment in first party studios instead of first party IPs is really biting them in the ass.

I've really got to wonder what their press conference is going to look like at this rate. Sony has a plan going forward with a robust lineup of first party games, Microsoft has... Halo?

I dunno.. I think this game is sorta exactly what MS needs. It has enough name recognition to raise eyebrows, but not too much to where they're just "peddling out the same franchises over and over". It's sorta exactly these games that makes or breaks the first party war. Imagine if Sunset Overdrive, ReCore, Scalebound and this game were really great hits. It would be the perfect counterbalance to how Bloodborne, Horizon and Last of Us remastered has carried the PS4.

The HL3 myth status is built like this right? :)

@ares42: Except imagining all of this is useless. None of it happened and the future is looking bleak. No matter what MS announce its nothing any of us can bank on. Look I have all the current gen systems and am begging for MS to give me a reason to turn my XBOX on. Its just not happening.

Also, consider me crazy if you want but Crackdown for me was never an eyebrow raiser or something to keep an eye on. I always found it underwhelming and I've been a fan of MS since the OG XBOX....I've also just been a fan of everything else. Maybe its just me but Crackdown was never the world beater its being held up to be (potentially) IMO.

I think they'd have cancelled it by now if they had more exclusive options on the way, hopefully they do show some new stuff at E3 this year.

Honestly this should stinks of Microsoft having no faith in this game.

Well that’s unfortunate. Are they going to hire Terry Crews again next year for a new live-action trailer?

I was going to make a thread like this last week, when these rumours first surfaced, but they didn’t get confirmed and someone from the dev team tweeted that the game hasn’t been canned. But this at least sure seems like it definitely got delayed.

Doesn't bother me one bit. I'll play a new crackdown game if it ever comes out but I'm not desperately waiting for this to come out. It's always been a fun but incredibly middling series.

This. It's not going to sell well anyway and it's clearly got problems. Just can it already.

I think this is appropriate for this thread.

If they just invested the money in a webseries where Terry Crews build pc's for the next ten years i would have being a happy man!

I hate what these developers are doing for/to Microsoft and Xbox. A damn shame since it feels like Microsoft is really trying.

I can't imagine a world where Crackdown 3 is a great game. People need to stop worrying about it.

I've given up on Microsoft's first party/exclusive games now. There are plenty of games, no big deal.

No, because Half-Life 3 was and has never been announced. This feels like more of a Final Fantasy Versus XIII --> Final Fantasy XV situation.

So, there's no way this game recoups its costs, right?

Goddamn, that’s a bummer. Having played a little Crackdown 1 lately, I’d still love to see Crackdown 3 released.

Here’s hoping it comes out and is worth all the extra years, I suppose...

Alan Wake got delayed into forever and turned out pretty good. One of my favourites of last gen

But it also wasn't a big retail success. This does not bode well for Crackdown. Also, does anyone care about Crackdown? I also haven't played my Xbox One since Overcooked came out. It's pretty grim for it at the moment.

@neocalypso: I believe that this is why it's getting delayed, Someone with a green a light is saying this okay and okay is no longer good enough.

Microsoft is in need of competitive exclusives especially when Halo is no longer their golden egg.

MS E3 is gonna be over quick this year. It's down to a teaser trailer for the next Sea of Thieves DLC and a 30 minute video of how they make the vapor chamber.

Now that is a Patreon I'd happily pay for!

If it comes out and is any good I will play it, if not I won't. I don't get the big deal about games getting delayed. Sure you have the arm chair business men spouting prophecies of doom but are there folks really folks counting the days for a game to come out?

Microsoft can't cancel Crackdown at this point; its been shown and talked about, by them, far too much. I agree, the only good Crackdown was the first one but their first party lineup for the entirety of the Xbox One has been rather lackluster and derivative overall. Is this "the end" or something? No, but its just another bullet point under the topic of "How Microsoft Completely Bungled Their Way Through This Console Generation". I think what this does is prove another point in why game publisher's and developers should get a lid on their games until they are far more sure of its release date. I understand the process is more for shareholders and investors than anything else but its optically awful for Microsoft to have shown this thing as much as they have but still have to delay the game every single time. I would put a small amount of money on them simply releasing it in a junk, competition free window in mid-2019 because of the state of the game. Microsoft really needed something besides another obligatory Forza game this fall. What has 2018 been for them so far? Sea of Thieves (wet fart) and State of Decay 2. I guess we can all get excited for another Halo and Gears of War announcement...

What a mess

Not many people seemed to be impressed that MS was making another Crackdown game in the first place, yet apparently now that it's being delayed, it's open season to act affronted? This is like Scalebound all over again. About two people were actually excited about it until it was axed, at which point everyone acted like it was some hotly-anticipated system-seller type of game and gleefully pointed to the cancellation as proof of Xbox failure. And while it's true that the Xbox does need more/better first-party content soon, at minimum, Cuphead, Forza Horizon 2, Sunset Overdrive, Forza 6, Titanfall, Forza Horizon 3, and Ori are all existing quality first-party games (and you could make a decent argument for Halo, Gears, PUBG, and a few more of the Forza games), but people seem to find reasons why none of those games are worthwhile. I'm not into insert genre. Game is imperfect for overly nitpicky reason. What have you done for me lately? Etc., etc.

Well, what MS did lately is make the One X, because everyone voted with their wallets earlier this gen that they wanted the "best" console versions of third-party games, as that was basically the whole argument for owning a PS4 for the better part of three years and Sony completely got a pass for a long-time dearth of exclusives up until about 2017 based largely on the potential of the PS4. And here we are now with the One X having already proven itself to be every bit the fucking beast it was promised to be, except now power/graphics/performance/potential apparently doesn't matter, and everyone's demanding that the console justify its existence with new first-party games immediately even though the thing's been out for all of a few months. Well, that's likely exactly what they're going to focus on this E3, and shouldn't we at least see what MS has to offer there before piling on?

Actually, that probably won't matter, either. There is an entire contingent of people eager to say they're "not interested" in what MS comes up with, no matter what it is. Even though all the Forza Horizon games have been somewhere between good and incredible, Horizon 4 won't "move the needle" because it's not a new IP. Same goes for potential new entries in the franchises for Halo, Gears, et al. Immediately dismissed, regardless of promise now or actual quality when they release. Enter grumbling about these "tired" genres/franchises, how RPGs are so much better, blah, blah. Then let's say the rumored Fable game is announced, at which point the refrain will be about how it assuredly won't be good. And if MS shows some neat, exciting surprise(s)? Too far off in the future; what is there in 2018, etc.

Sigh.

Hopefully that means it'll be great.

I don't see why you act so jaded to everyone when they're just spouting....truths. The xbox had an awful launch, completely on microsoft, it has a very small slate of exclusive games and more of those exclusives will be showing up on pc as we head into the future. If you head on over to https://gematsu.com/exclusives baring in mind any possible inaccuracies, and you ONLY look at full exclusivity, the xbox one has fewer than 50 titles, the ps4 has over 250. Full exclusivity in this case means you can not play the game on any other device in the world without some kind of emulation/hack. They are games for those two consoles only. The ps4 has more "import" titles in that list, but not so many to make a real dent in the difference.

If you look at games that are exclusive to one console but do show up on pc(and excluding all others including full exclusivity) you again have less than 200 on xbox one and over 450 on ps4. These are major differences. If you don't play on a pc, there are nearly 400 more games on a ps4 that you can play only on a ps4 versus the xbox one.

As for

"Cuphead, Forza Horizon 2, Sunset Overdrive, Forza 6, Titanfall, Forza Horizon 3, and Ori are all existing quality first-party games (and you could make a decent argument for Halo, Gears, PUBG, and a few more of the Forza games"

Cuphead, the latest Forza Horizon and Forza, Titanfall 2, Ori, PubG, the latest Gears, and the next Halo are all on pc. That doesn't completely discount the xbox one, but for a "core" audience like giantbomb who game on multiple devices that spend a lot of money on this hobby, what does an xbox really offer? Not nothing, but at times very little.

And this all wraps around back to Crack Down. A game with a disappointing(to most) sequel already, that didn't show well at events or even in trailers honestly. Even then, it's coming out on pc. I enjoy the console games on pc future, but for an enthusiast looking for unique reasons to buy a console, what has microsoft given you this generation?

And talking about the One X, well, what can I say? They delivered a strong console past the ps4 already being better and the pro being released. Very VERY few games have come out only for xbox since then and you and your friends most likely already bought ps4s/pros/good pcs before it. Devs did get better at releasing games for the ps3 back in the day so that not every release was a janky framerate mess compared to the xbox 360 which helped, but what actually shore up sony was software releases. What good does all the power in the world get you when there is hardly a thing to use it on?

I'm holding out hope that they're building the world destruction into the game offline, and that's what's taking so long. They started with "its gonna be destructible anywhere because we're always going to be online!" and people threw a tantrum so it became "the multiplayer only has the destruction, but you can play the singleplayer offline!" and everyone was immediately uninterested, and then they went silent. They must have rebooted the core systems of the game twice now. Maybe they're struggling to get it running on Ones, but it runs well on OneXs?

But it seems like Microsoft is gonna pay whatever it takes to get it out the door? At least it isn't an Andromeda situation where they pulled the funding, stitched whatever was there together and dumped it out, if they're getting delays then someone is still saying make it good.

They can't be delaying it for quality purposes. If you played Crackdown 2, you could tell they do not care about quality

@notnert427: If you release a box more expensive but weaker than you rival performance is definitely going to be a major talking point. An optional upgrade a year after your rival at a higher price that 90% of the gaming public won't buy will do jack, you'll gonna need software to sell it as most people already have their box.

Crackdown 3 has 4 studio's working on the game over the past 5 years its has not been cheap and being the proponent for the cloud any delay would always be big news, even with no one being that enamoured with the game its emblematic of MS failure to manage projects this gen.

Forza Horizon is a brilliant franchise rated both critically and commercially with FH3 being one of the few games MS has given numbers for it does move the needle, proof comes from the UK charts where bundles are counted FH3 is hardly ever outside the top 20. An open-world Fable RPG with Playgounds name attached would make alot of folks very happy.

While i do love how Xbox releases their games on PC now, it's one more reason to not have an xbox. Maybe after 5 years i will have built up enough of those play anywhere games on PC that buying a xbox to have all those games on my TV would be a compelling idea, but right now there's not much i would gain from buying an xbox. I applaud the long-term vision, but i fear it does harm them in the short term quite a bit.

Hey, if that means it's not ready, then I'd rather they keep at it and not launch a game that's unfinished. If they keep us waiting and it sucks anyway next year, then I'll completely understand the furor of the internets. Let's wait and see what is really what at E3. I'll will say that MS needs to be transparent though on the state of Crackdown 3 at the conference. If they say it's delayed because we feel it's not ready and want to release a better game, I'll take'em at their word. But they also need to show some evidence of a commitment to exclusive games development if they want the xbox brand to stay relevant, let alone competitive.

I swear, if they don't cancel it and they just release a regular-ass Crackdown game with zero innovation, I'm gonna be more disappointed than I would have been if they just cancelled it.

@notnert427: I have a Day One edition Xbox One. I want Microsoft to succeed. But the fact is I don't feel they have had a game this generation that compares to God of War or Breath of the Wild. Gears of War and Halo don't have the spark they had on the 360, and I say this as the guy who bought collector's editions of Gears 3 and Halo 3. I think they need to do what Guerilla Games did with Horizon. Switch it up a bit.

This is why the "when it's ready" approach to release date announcements is probably the best thing to do. Games are hard, they get delayed, hopefully the delay means the game will exceed expectations.

@barrock: I feel like killzone was in a worse off spot than halo or gears, even this late into those damn sequels, but yeah it'd be nice to see what ELSE those developers can do other than left trigger right trigger and pretty(or disgusting) environments.

@cure_optimism:Lol it would be real bad if they needed nearly 5 years AFTER announcing it to release a basic ass open world game with bad shooting and old hat super powers.

Well, this is what happens when you pretty much close down all your first party devs. I mean, this delay would have happened either way, but maybe they would have had a bit more for this year.

I do look forward to their press conference. It better be great and either Gears or Halo should come out this year. Let's hope it's not another one where almost every single game they show gets cancelled.