Crackdown 3 review: Years late and full of disappointment

Crackdown 3 was revealed virtually 5 years ago at E3 2022. Since then, the game has go notorious for its lengthy and storied development history, with Cloudgine parting mid-fashion through development, coupled with extensive delays.

Crackdown three is the third entry in an open world series that revolves around superhero-manner open earth mayhem. As a fellow member of the law-breaking-fighting Agency, you're a super-soldier tasked with single-handedly infiltrating and dismantling criminal factions.

The 3rd game takes identify later a devastating global set on, resulting in the loss of power across the world. A mysterious corporation, known as Terra Nova, has taken over the island of New Providence, and fashioned it as a new nation, and prophylactic oasis for the world'due south beleaguered refugees. Even so, all is it non as it seems.

A contingent of Agency operatives caput out to New Providence to investigate the source of the global blackout, only to exist met with heavy militarized resistance. It'south on you to bring Terra Nova to justice.

Crackdown iii is ultimately a tale of two price points. At $60, the game is aggressively difficult to recommend for a litany of reasons. Simply as part of a $10 Xbox Game Laissez passer monthly subscription, it offers some genuinely satisfying open up earth chaos and some truly impressive technical achievements in its cloud-powered Wrecking Zone, that brand it a worthy addition to the library.

Hither's our review of Crackdown 3.

Sandbox mayhem

Crackdown three

$sixty | $x (Xbox Game Pass)

Bottom line: Crackdown 3 is a relatively shallow experience across the lath, simply fans of sandbox devastation will find plenty of fun.

Pros:

Vibrant fine art style and special effects.
Good grapheme designs.
High-octane sandbox destruction.
Available in Xbox Game Pass.
Terry Crews.

Cons:

Forgettable story.
Dated level blueprint.
Poor multiplayer component.
Not plenty Terry Crews.

Crackdown 3 Visuals and sound

Crackdown 3, like its predecessors, sports comic book-style designs with vibrant, outlined 3D models. The art direction is decent, with interesting characters and a neon-washed sci-fi urban center that makes for great screencaps. The lighting and modelling piece of work leaves a lot to be desired, all the same. Crackdown 3 is a relatively dated-looking game, fifty-fifty when taking into account that stylized art. Luckily for Crackdown 3, the action is so incredibly fast-paced you'll rarely have time to sit down back and examine the sights.

Speaking of action, this is clearly where Crackdown 3 prioritized its fourth dimension, with some spectacular particle effects and explosions. As y'all leap and cavort through New Providence, the game globe provides ample opportunity to create these cascading explosive furnishings with a wide array of weapons and vehicles, well-nigh of which have unique visuals of their own.

In terms of operation, I didn't feel whatsoever slowdown fifty-fifty when the action on-screen reached its about chaotic levels towards the end of the game. The Xbox One X handles the game well at 4K with 30 FPS, although I did suffer a couple of crashes throughout my time with the game.

It'southward a picayune frustrating because in that location are shades of greatness throughout the blueprint direction, including the (brief) animated vignettes and the detailed pre-rendered scenes (all ii of them). The vast bulk of the game, notwithstanding, looks similar information technology was dragged out of the Xbox 360 era.

Crackdown three Story

This will exist a short section, since Crackdown three is incredibly calorie-free on narrative. Crackdown 3 rarely takes control away from the player with traditional cutscenes, salve for a few grapheme introductions. The vast majority of the dialogue is delivered over the radio, from both the Agency manager and a local militia member who helps your agent take the fight to Terra Nova.

Like nigh comic book-inspired stories, Crackdown iii'southward plot is a lilliputian cheesy and obvious. Some of the villain designs and delivery are rather good, but they're all nether utilized. By the time you get-go to get an idea of what makes a particular baddie tick, you lot've probably killed them off.

Perhaps the almost egregious attribute of Crackdown iii's story delivery is that Terry Crews' bombastic portrayal of Commander Jaxon is barely present. Perhaps this is down to the game's marketing being out of sync with the game, simply the fact Terry Crews' Jaxon feels more prevalent in the game'southward trailers than Crackdown 3 itself, seems similar a poor resource allotment of resources.

The game offers cursory audio dialogue every bit the game's villains chatter and bicker over your explosive infiltration of the island, and at that place are some audio dialogue files to uncover for farther context. However, beyond that, the narrative every bit bare bones as it comes, split across brief comic-volume style vignettes, Xbox 360-era facial animations, and just a couple of high-quality pre-rendered scenes that appear only at the start and at the end of the campaign. You might go some fleeting joy at Crackdown 3'due south ane-liners as yous tear up the metropolis, but the truth is that you're probably not here for the story, though. Crackdown is pretty upfront about revolving around explosive action, and in that, the game delivers fairly well.

Crackdown three Campaign Gameplay

Crackdown 3 is split beyond two separate clients, one granting access to the 2-thespian co-op campaign and the other granting access to the Wrecking Zone multiplayer. The campaign offers around seven hours of gameplay depending on how many of the side activities you want to partake in. The primary gameplay loop barely changes throughout, however. Once you've taken down your beginning outpost, you basically exercise the same thing over and over, with little to pause things upwardly. Thankfully, though, information technology's pretty fun.

Crackdown three is practiced mindless fun.

Like previous Crackdown games, Crackdown 3 features incremental progression mechanics that rewards players with increasing strength, gun control, vehicle handling, and other powers. If you favour chirapsia enemies downward, it'll increment your strength rating. Utilizing lots of explosives will increase the power of your rocket-powered weapons, and then on. Eventually, your agility skill will be high enough to allow you to leap over large buildings, double jumping and aerial dashing across the map.

I don't think a lot of work went in to testing some of the gameplay features on offer in Crackdown 3, though. For example, regular firearms such equally assault rifles are too weak to carp with, when rocket launchers and ammunition are in such huge affluence. By the stop of the game, I had forgotten nearly firearms entirely, even though I had spent a significant corporeality of time levelling them upwardly. They lack versatility, and well, fun, since they don't create gigantic explosions, and a lot of the more powerful units you lot meet towards the end of the game are practically immune to them.

Vehicle handling is also dissatisfying poor, to the point where I merely opted to run around and use fast travel points about of the time. At that place are time trials and stunts yous tin practise if you lot're a completionist, though, and information technology'll reward you with various vehicular upgrades, including a boxing tank, if you lot suffer through it.

When you disregard the bad stuff, though, Crackdown 3 is good mindless fun. Picking up tanks and throwing them across the map, vacuuming up enemies into a singularity grenade, and punching enemies off buildings is incessantly agreeable. Targeting tin be frustrating at times and, larger objects can really become stuck on the floor when you attempt to throw them, but they're minor problems that Microsoft's partners could probably accost quite hands.

Crackdown 3 follows a typical open world model where you defeat enemy lieutenants, each with unique armies and different abilities. The thing is, the approach to combat is pretty much the aforementioned regardless of who you fight, despite some weapons gain advantages when attacking robots, for example, while others are better against vehicles. Explosive weapons, however, merely seem to be past far the best pick in almost every situation. Some of the other guns that are fun to use, like the force-blasting vortex gun, are just sub optimal, lacking area-of-effect capabilities and, well, raw power.

Throwing trucks at crowds of bad dudes has an odd therapeutic quality.

In that location are a few simple boss battles and different types of outposts to tackle equally yous piece of work your way upwardly to the game's big evil, simply Crackdown iii doesn't dictate how y'all should approach whatsoever of these objectives.

While I found it to be optimal to simply jump around spamming rockets and throwing cars, others may adopt other means of devastation. In that sense, Crackdown 3 is a true sandbox, granting you lot the tools, simply non telling you how to use them.

Crackdown iii certainly isn't going to entreatment to everyone, nor is it what I would call an experience I'll think fondly in a few years, only I completed the game in about ane sitting. I was never bored. Throwing trucks at crowds of bad dudes has an odd therapeutic quality. If that's your jam, then Crackdown iii's campaign should satisfy you lot.

Crackdown 3 Wrecking Zone Multiplayer

As of writing, we oasis't had hands-on fourth dimension with the last build of Crackdown three's Wrecking Zone style, its long-anticipated deject-powered devastation arena. We have however played the contempo beta tests, and we'll offer some initial thoughts on that experience, updating this section if the terminal build is significantly different.

Like much of Crackdown 3, Wrecking Zone feels as though it emerged from the Xbox 360 generation on the one hand, contrasted against the awe-inspiring technical accomplishment that is its dynamic, cloud-powered devastation tech on the other hand. It's an odd juxtaposition that such staggeringly powerful technology sits on top of what is an painfully simplistic auto-aim arena shooter, with gameplay from a foretime era.

In Wrecking Zone, y'all're dropped into team-based scenarios across a variety of holographic-fashion maps, in what is narratively an Agency training simulation. Players must bound and dash across the environment, laying waste material to cover while attempting to remain out of enemy actor'south line of sight.

Combat in the Wrecking Zone isn't as dynamic as I would have hoped. Caught out in the open up, the player who shot first, with the higher DPS weapon will effectively win any conflict cheers to auto-aim, unless the defender has some kind of shield buff. You tin can mitigate this by punching through walls to intermission the line of sight, or using spring pads to go out of range, but beyond that there isn't much by way of forethought or strategy that goes into play. That isn't necessarily such a terrible thing, though.

Much like the game's entrada sandbox, the wanton destruction is satisfying to partake in, even if the competitive aspects of the game are a petty muted. Taking out huge walkways with a rocket launcher, seeing the chunks plummet in existent time with full physics sparks the imagination. It's just that the bodily game layered on height feels near similar it gets in the mode. There's no doubt a high-quality competitive game that tin emerge from this technology, merely I tin can't meet Wrecking Zone having the staying power of competing multiplayer titles out in that location, particularly given that it is launching without any sort of party system to play with friends.

Should yous buy Crackdown three?

Crackdown iii is ultimately the tale of two price points. At $threescore, it's pretty difficult to recommend. The content spread just isn't there, there are other games available now or very soon that will probably be a far meliorate investment. However, Xbox Game Laissez passer completely changes the statement. As a $ten payment for a month's worth of access, Crackdown 3 is some decent mindless fun, tossing tanks into the sky, spraying rockets beyond the map, or punching dudes into buildings. Wrecking Zone is likewise worth a wait, if for no reason other than the impressive destruction mechanics.

Crackdown 3 just doesn't come across contemporary standards as a premium $sixty title, with dated visuals, thin gameplay features, and an under-delivered story. At that place are too many open world superhero-style games that simply practice it better. That said, information technology's not a bad game, by any means. To enjoy Crackdown 3, you probably need to be the type of person who really likes basic sandbox mayhem, because that'due south finer all Crackdown 3 has (and wants) to offer.

Explosive playground

Crackdown three

Your every day sandbox.

Crackdown 3 is a decent sandbox experience that falls brusk of mod standards, but equally an Xbox Game Pass championship, it offers some good mindless fun.

Jez reviewed Crackdown three on Xbox One X, using a copy provided by Microsoft.

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