E3 2014: What I’m Excited About (Part 1)–New Crackdown!

Last week I made my wish list, and now the E3 press briefings for Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are behind us. While it looks like only one of my wishes are coming true, there were some things from each conference that I’m really excited about/ In the next few posts, I’ll highlight some of them.

First up, let’s talk about my one wish that came true. We are getting a new Crackdown. Here’s the new trailer:

It doesn’t look like the MMO I was hoping for, but from the look of the trailer, it’s going to be big. There were a number of encouraging things in the trailer, even if it didn’t feature any gameplay. First off, we see the leader of the Los Muertos gang in this new city, which means the gangs from the original Crackdown are back. The trailer also leaned heavily on the concept of cooperative play, as the agents are all working together to make an assault on the gang boss’ headquarters. The big moment in the trailer certainly suggests there will be some destructibility in the environments, which would be a great addition to the gameplay.

Perhaps most exciting though, was the fact that this game is not being called Crackdown 3. Whether it’s a complete reboot or not, I like the idea of giving the series a fresh start on the new platform, and it suggests this could be an ongoing franchise moving forward.

The only thing that bummed me out was there were no Freaks in the video, which means it looks like the franchise is moving away from the concepts introduced in Crackdown 2. That’s probably a good thing, as Sunset Overdrive is using a similar concept, but I actually enjoyed the Freaks in Crackdown 2. Remember them?

I am really looking forward to learning more about Crackdown, who is developing it, and getting some idea of when we’ll see it. My gut tells me it won’t be until 2016. In the meantime, I would love to see a port of the original Crackdown (and maybe even Crackdown 2) for the Xbox One. I wouldn’t even care if they gave it the full HD treatment, as the cartoonish style holds up better than a lot of last gen games. I just want to dive into that world again–soon. Here’s a great fan-made trailer for the original, in case you forgot how much fun it was. There’s a lot of great ideas that the series doesn’t get credit for, like the voice of the Agency who is constantly commenting on your actions in the games.